.Uituit 


4 

ADDRESSES 


THE  LIBHftu 
Of  THE 

UtilVERSITY  OF  II. 


DELIVERED 


THE  OPEHIHG 


OF  THE 


AGRICULTURAL  COLLEGE, 

JA  ARCH  17,  1869 


DAVENPORT,  IOWA  : 

GAZETTE  PREMIUM  BOOK  & JOB  PRINTING  ESTABLISHMENT 

18(19. 


ADDRESS  OF  WELCOME. 

BY  LIEUT.  GOV.  SCOTT. 


Mr.  President , Ladies  and  Gentlemen  : — This  is  the  day  that  we  , 
of  Story  County  have  long  and  anxiously  waited  to  see.  The 
proposition  to  locate  an  Agricultural  College  somewhere  in  Iowa, 
elicited,  as  well  it  might,  a lively  interest  in  many  localities  in  the 
State,  and  Story  County  was  finally  selected,  being  centrally  loca- 
ted, and  offering  superior  advantages,  and  you  are  convened  to-day 
to  witness  the  consummation  of  this  long  hoped  for  event. 

I have  been  unexpectedly  called  upon  to  make  a few  remarks  on 
this  interesting  occasion.  In  the  name  of  the  Board  of  Trustees, 
of  the  students,  of  the  multitude  here  assembled,  in  the  name  of 
the  State  of  Iowa,  young  giant  as  she  is,  and  in  the  name  of  this, 
one  of  the  grandest  schemes  ever  devised  by  men  for  the  education 
of  the  young  men  and  young  women  of  a State,  I bid  you  welcome. 
The  interest  which  the  State  has  taken  in  organizing  this  great 
event,  should  be  ever  remembered  by  the  farmers  of  Iowa,  with 
the  most  lively  pleasure.  This  should  be  considered  a great  day 
in  the  educational  interest  of  Iowa — great  because  it  promises  great 
results ; great  because  it  aims  to  educate  the  farmers’  sons  and 
daughters  in  all  the  arts  calculated  to  render  life  useful. 

Many  of  the  members  of  this  Board  have  long  been  engaged  in 
this  enterprise — have  labored  faithfully,  hopefully— and  to  these 
this  must  be  a happy  day. 

This  is  an  untried  experiment  here.  Some  may  be  disposed  to  say 
that  in  Agricultural  education,  you  should  not  be  hasty  in  pro- 
nouncing anything  a failure  that  has  not  yet  been  fully  tried.  It 
is  true  that  we  hear,  from  several  other  States,  accounts  of  unsuc- 
cessful experiments  in  this  direction,  but  I have  full  faith  to  be- 
lieve that  even  in  those  States,  success  will  yet  crown  their  efforts. 


4 

Some  have  even  questioned  the  right  of  a State  to  originate  an 
enterprise  of  this  kind,  hut  when  you  candidly  consider  the  merits 
of  the  case,  we  think  no  man  can  say  that  the  State  of  Iowa  has 
not  the  right  to  establish  an  institution  of  the  kind  which  you  are 
here  to  inaugurate  to-day.  The  people  of  Iowa  have  always  man- 
fully borne  their  share  in  all  public  enterprises  and  necessities, 
whether  in  cutting  down  hills  and  filling  up  valleys  for  railways, 
or  in  drawing  the  sword  when  the  life  of  the  Nation  was  imper- 
illed. 

Have  we  done  all  we  should  to  develop  the  agriculture  of  Iowa  ? 
If  not  all  we  should,  I would  ask  if  we  have  less  farming  land  in 
cultivation  than  any  other  State  in  the  Union  in  proportion  to  our 
population  ? When  we  consider  what  we  have  done,  we  can  con- 
template the  future  with  pride. 

Shall  we  hold  on,  and  allow  other  nations  to  outstrip  us  ? If 
thirty  years  ago,  the  prophecy  had  been  made  that  we  would  be 
here  to-day  engaged  as  we  are,  or  that  the  useful  arts  and  sciences, 
— agricultural  and  the  mechanical  arts — would  to-day  stand  among 
mankind  as  they  do,  the  person  making  this  prophecy  would  have 
been  pronounced  insane.  Shall  we  venture  to  prophecy  what  this 
institution  will  be  three  years  hence  ? 

The  education  of  man  and  woman  up  to  the  perfection  of  man- 
hood and  womanhood  is  not  the  work  of  a day.  This  is  the  work 
of  years.  Be  patient,  wait  till  time  shall  enable  the  Professors  of 
this  Institution  to  develop  it  to  its  full  capacity. 

To  the  pupils  I would  say,  if  you  accept  the  opportunity  offered 
to  you  here,  you  yourselves  in  this  acceptance  agree’rigidly  and 
faithfully  to  observe  the  rules  laid  down  for  the  maintainance  of 
order  in  this  College. 

I would  say  to  the  young  men  who  are  here  to  study  agriculture, 
whatever  crops  you  sow,  leave  out  the  sowing  of  wild  oats. 

Humbly  for  myself,  proudly  for  Iowa  and  for  the  Professors  of 
this  Institution,  in  the  name  of  the  educational  interests  of  Iowa, 
I again  bid  you  a hearty  welcome. 


ADDRESS 

OF  EX-LIBUT.  GOV.  B.  F.  GUI,  MES1D1T  01  THE  BOARD  OF  TRUSTEES. 

Fellow  Citizens  : — More  than  eleven  years  have  come  and  gone, 
since  the  first  steps  were  taken  towards  the  establishment  of  a 
State  Agricultural  College,  for  the  especial  benefit  of  the  sons 
and  daughters  of  the  working  people  of  Iowa.  While  the  great 
mass  of  our  citizens  have  been  engaged  in  their  own  private  af- 
fairs, and  absorbed  with  their  own  schemes  of  amassing  wealth, 
securing  political  advancement,  or  in  the  pursuit  of  pleasure,  a 
few  only  have  been  engaged  in  the  great  work  of  projecting,  or- 
ganizing, and  building  up  an  institution,  which  we  confidently 
believe  is  destined  to  exert  an  important  influence  on  the  people 
of  our  young  State  in  the  future.  So  slowly  and  quietly  has  this 
work  been  going  on,  that  as  intelligent  as  our  citizens  are,  and 
well  informed  on  most  ordinary  subjects,  nine-tenths  of  them  to 
day  are,  in  a measure,  ignorant  of  the  history,  aims  and  purposes 
of  this  Institution. 

I do  not  propose  to  weary  your  patience  with  a recital  of  all 
the  important  facts  connected  with  its  early  history,  or  the  vari- 
ous means  used  to  accomplish  the  work,  nor  refer  to  the  names  of 
the  earnest  friends  of  the  project,  who  have,  from  time  to  time 
given  their  influence  and  best  energies  in  its  behalf. 

But  upon  this  occasion  of  the  formal  inauguration  of  the  Iowa 
Agricultural  College,  when  the  time  has  come  for  the  Trustees 
to  place  it  in  the  keeping  of  the  Faculty  chosen  to  take  charge  of 
the  great  work  to  which  it  is  dedicated,  it  may  not  perhaps  be 
considered  improper  to  refer  briefly  to  its  origin,  and  the  chief  aim 
of  those  by  whom  it  was  originated. 


0 

It  was  not  because  the  founders  of  this  Institution  wished  simp- 
ly to  add  another  to  the  number  of  Colleges  in  the  State,  but  be- 
cause they  had  become  convinced  that  none  of  these  already  in 
existence  were  organized  upon  a plan  that  placed  them  within 
reach  of  the  industrial  classes.  It  was  to  supply  this  want  that  in- 
duced the  advocates  of  the  Agricultural  College  to  devise  the  new 
plan,  frame  a bill,  and  press  through  the  Legislature  the  organic 
act  which  has  given  to  our  State  this  College,  dedicated  forever  to 
the  education  of  the  working  people. 

The  founders  of  this  Institution  were  three  or  four  young  men, 
who  had  worked  their  way  through  long  years  of  weary  toil  into 
the  Legislature  of  their  adopted  State.  From  the  days  of  early 
boyhood  they  had  often  keenly  felt  the  need  of  some  institution  of 
a high  order,  within  reach  of  the  hundreds  of  young  men  whom 
poverty  alone  keeps  out  of  our  ordinary  Colleges.  However  am- 
bitious such  young  men  may  be,  to  stand  side  by  side  with  the 
sons  of  their  wealthy  neighbors  on  the  plane  of  education,  there 
were  few  if  any  Colleges  at  that  time,  in  which  they  could  hope 
to  enter,  with  a reasonable  probability  of  being  able  to  graduate. 
Colleges  were  for  professional  men,  and  the  sons  of  the  wealthy, 
and  the  children  of  a “small  fisted  farmer,”  or  “greasy  machanic,” 
or  common  laborer,  were  not  expected  to  aspire  to  the  knowledge 
which  was  there  in  store  for  the  favored  classes. 

It  is  true,  that  occasionally  a young  man  of  the  industrial 
classes  had,  by  toiling  early  and  late,  by  enduring  the  jeers  and 
taunts  of  his  more  fortunate  companions,  succeeded  in  work- 
ing his  way  into,  and  through  a literary  college.  But  in  doing 
this,  he  too  often  ruined  his  health,  and  utterly  destroyed  his  taste 
or  inclination  for  any  of  the  industrial  pursuits  of  life,  naturally 
drifting  into  some  one  of  the  over-crowded  learned  professions. 
It  is  not  strange  that  he  should ; for  the  entire  college  course  trains 
the  student  for  the  learned  professions,  and  indirectly,  but  most 
effectually,  teaches  him  to  abhor  labor  and  despise  the  laborer. 

To  correct  this  evil,  and  found  an  Institution  within  reach  of  the 
young  man  of  moderate  means,  in  which  a thorough  education, 
combined  with  a practical  knowledge  of  the  sciences  taught,  illus- 
trated in  the  field  and  workshop,  where  labor  should  be  honorable, 


r 

and  a part  of  the  oourse  of  instruction,  was  the  ruling  motive  which 
actuated  the  projectors  of  the  Iowa  Agricultural  College, 

With  these  ideas  steadily  in  view,  Its  founders  provided  In  the 
organic  act  that  all  students  should  he  required  to  labor,  as  a part 
of  the  course  of  instruction,  thus  making  labor  honorable,  and  idle- 
ness dishonorable.  Not  that  labor  should  be  compulsory  where  it 
was  distasteful,  but  providing  one  College  of  a high  grade,  where 
one  of  the  qualifications  for  admission  should  be  a cheerful  acquies- 
ence  in  the  soundness  of  the  labor  theory  and  practice.  The  pro- 
ject met  with  determined  opposition  in  both  branches  of  the  Leg- 
islature, and  was  agreed  to,  only  after  the  most  persistent  efforts 
of  its  friends  had  been  exerted  to  the  utmost.  We  succeeded  In 
getting  the  organic  act,  with  an  appropriation  of  $10,000,  a sum 
barely  sufficient  to  purchase  a farm  upon  which  to  build  up  the 
College.  So  bitter  was  the  opposition  to  the  project,  and  so  little 
were  its  aim  and  objects  understood,  that  for  six  years  no  further 
aid  could  be  obtained  from  the  State  to  assist  in  the  erection  of  a 
building. 

During  these  dark  days,  when  the  future  of  our  projected  Insti- 
tution seemed  shrouded  in  gloom,  when  the  most  sanguine  of  its 
friends  could  see  little  hope  of  success,  when  we  had  realized  the 
full  magnitude  of  the  undertaking,  utterly  destitute  of  resources 
necessary  to  carry  out  our  plans,  with  nothing  but  a great  prairie 
farm,  wild,  but  beautiful  in  its  wildness,  remote  from  railroad,  riv- 
er, cities  or  towns,  it  seemed  far  better  adapted  for  the  quiet  retreat 
of  some  pioneer  farmer  and  backwoods  hunter,  than  for  a site  upon 
which  to  erect  a College  for  the  children  of  the  farmers  and  me- 
chanics of  a great  State.  I remember  well  my  first  visit  to  this 
spot,  years  ago,  long  before  the  North  Western  Railroad  was  pro- 
jected. Striking  out  north  from  Des  Moines,  on  to  the  great  sea  of 
prairie  that  then  stretched,  in  almost;  unbroken  wildness,  to  the 
Minnesota  line,  the  great  monotonous  plain  of  waving  grass  only 
broken  here  and  there  by  scattered  groves,  and  meandering  through 
it  the  sluggish  river  of  fragrant  name,  that,  skirted  with  timber, 
seemed  like  a long  line  of  straggling  sentinels,  guarding  the  great 
plain  from  the  approaching  civilization  that  had  just  begun  to  en- 
croach upon  its  boundless  domain.  A few  log  cabins  of  the  early 


8 

pioneers  contained  the  entire  population  that  then  inhabited  the 
country  between  the  Capital  and  the  College  Farm.  Arriving  up- 
on the  ground  designated  by  that  classic  {name,  it  seemed  to  me 
that  it  must  have  been  selected  as  a place  of  exile,  where  students 
would  some  day  be  banished,  remote  from  civilization  and  its  at- 
tendant temptations,  to  study  nature  in  its  native  wildness.  Stand- 
ing on  the  eminence  where  the  College  now  looms  up,  we  could 
only  see  one  of  the  most  beautiful  landscapes  in  the  west,  but  al- 
most as  wild  as  when  Noah’s  Ark  floated  over  a world  of  water. 
When  and  how  a great  State  College  was  to  be  built  up  here,  was 
a problem  too  difficult  for  any  of  us  then  to  solve.  But  we  had 
got  the  idea,  the  land,  and  an  endorsement  of  the  Legislature,  and 
we  must  work  it  out. 

By  a fortunate  combination  of  circumstances,  the  great  east  and 
west  railroad  that  first  crossed  our  State,  was  located  through  our; 
farm,  bringing  us  in  communication  with  the  world,  opening 
up  these  great  wild  prairies  to  settlement,  and  affording  a means  of 
transportation  for  the  vast  amount  of  material  needed  to  improve 
and  stock  our  farm,  and  erect  the  necessary  buildings. 

Soon  the  surrounding  country  began  to  be  dotted  over  with  farms, 
houses,  groves  and  orchards.  The  little  village  of  Ames  sprang  in- 
to existence,  and  the  location,  which  was  so  fiercely  denounced, 
and  unsparingly  criticised  for  years,  has  finally  proved  to  be  ad- 
mirably adapted  to  the  purpose  in  view. 

While  we  were  patiently  waiting  for  more  auspicious  times, 
these  surroundings  had  quietly  crept  about  the  chosen  spot,  trans- 
forming it  into  a busy,  thriving,  active,  central  location,  accessible 
for  all  the  State. 

During  these  long  years  of  waiting,  the  friends  of  the  proposed 
College  were  not  idle.  They  had  barely  succeeded  in  getting  an 
endorsement  of  their  scheme  from  the  Legislature,  with  an  appro- 
priation so  insignificant  that  almost  the  entire  means  necessary 
to  establish,  build  up  and  maintain  a College  upon  their  favorite 
plan,  must  yet  be  devised.  It  was  evident,  ,from  the  determined 
opposition  which  the  small  appropriation  had  met  with,  that  oth- 
er aid  than  the  fickle  and  uncertain  action  of  a Legislature  must 
be  invoked  to  insure  final  success.  The  public  can  never  know 


9 

the  anxious  thought,  the  earnest  and  persistent  labor,  devoted  by 
its  early  friends,  before  daylight  seemed  to  dawn  upon  the  formid- 
able undertaking.  After  consultation  with  friends  of  the  plan  in 
other  States,  it  was  determined  to  ask  the  General  Government 
for  a grant  of  the  public  lands,  similar  to  that  made  for  the  sup- 
port of  our  State  University  and  Common  Schools,  the  proceeds 
of  which  should  be  held  as  a permanent  endowment  fund  for  the 
support  of  Agricultural  Colleges.  After  years  of  earnest  work, 
Congress  was  induced  to  pass  an  act  granting  lands  for  the  benefit 
of  Agricultural  Colleges,  to  the  amount  of  40,000  acres  for  each 
member  of  that  body,  giving  to  our  State  the  magnificent  grant  of 
240,000  acres,  all  of  which  was  selected  within  our  own  limits,  re- 
duced however  by  the  selection  of  railroad  lands,  to  204,000  acres. 

With  the  acquirement  of  this  magnificent  endowment,  the  friends 
of  the  College  were  confident  of  ultimate  success ; and  from  this 
time  forward  worked  with  renewed  hope.  The  terrible  civil  war 
which  here  intervened,  absorbed  the  entire  attention  and  best  en- 
ergies of  the  government  and  people  for  four  long  years,  fraught 
with  events  of  such  magnitude,  sufferings  so  fearful,  and  expendi- 
tures so  enormous,  that  they  will  never  fade  from  the  memory  of 
that  generation.  All  works  of  minor  importance  must  give  way 
to  the  great  overshadowing  one,  of  preserving  our  government 
from  destruction.  With  the  first  dawn  of  peace,  the  Legislature 
made  a liberal  appropriation  for  the  erection  of  the  long  delayed 
College  Building.  None  but  those  engagedin  the  work  can  form 
an  adequate  idea  of  the  obtacle3  encountered,  difficulties  over- 
come, delays  and  annoyances  innumerable,  that  have  attended  the 
erection  and  completion  of  this  building.  It  has  been  the  work  of 
years ; and  scores  of  mechanics,  artisans,  and  laborers,  have  been 
employed  upon  it,  under  various  contractors,  superintendents,  and 
architects ; so  that  whatever  of  success  or  failure,  credit  or  blame, 
attaches  to  its  builders,  is  rather  widely  distributed. 

It  has  been  the  aim  of  the  trustees  to  provide  it  with  furniture 
corresponding  in  style  with  the  architectural  beauty  of  the  struc- 
ture, and  to  supply  it  with  heat,  ventilation,  light,  and  water,  in 
abundance,  in  every  part  and  upon  the  best  plans  attainable. 

The  Cabinets,  Laboratory,  and  Library,  are  yet  in  their  infancy, 
but  steps  have  been  taken  to  begin  the  slow  work  of  providing 


10 

them  on  a scale  commensurate  with  the  importance  of  the  Institu- 
tion they  are  to  supply.  But  buildings  with  convenient  and  costly 
equipments,  are  only  a part  of  the  necesssary  instruments  required 
in  the  creation  of  a great  Institution  of  learning.  These  may  all 
be  provided  with  a lavish  hand,  and  of  the  most  approved  finish, 
with  skill,  taste  and  judgment ; but  without  live,  earnest,  intelli- 
gent and  faithful  instructors,  utter  failure  will  be  the  final  result. 
It  is  difficult  to  select  and  procure  a corps  of  professors,  eminent  in 
the  various  attainments  for  an  ordinary  literary  college,  notwith- 
standing thousands  of  graduates  are  being  ground  out  of  them  every 
year.  But  how  much  more  difficult  it  is  to  select  a faculty  emi- 
nently qualified  to  organize  a College  upon  a new  plan,  radi- 
cally different  from  the  common  method,  in  most  of  its  purposes 
and  aims,  none  but  those  engaged  in  the  work  can  realize.  Very 
few  of  the  educators  in  our  country  had  ever  given  the  subject 
and  plan  of  Agricultural  Colleges  a serious  thought ; and  it  was 
no  easy  matter  to  find  men  of  undoubted  qualifications  for  this  new 
field  of  labor.  A few  prominent  features  of  the  new  enterprise  had 
been  settled  by  law,  and  determination  of  the  trustees.  First,  every 
student  must  be  willing  to  perform  from  two  to  three  hours  of 
manual  labor  each  day,  under  competent  instructors,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  learning  by  actual  participation,  the  best  methods  of  per- 
forming the  details  of  those  operations  closely  connected  with 
Agriculture,  Horticulture,  and  Machanics.  They  must  not  only 
understand  the  theory,  but  the  pacticc  must  be  familiar  to  them ; 
that  while  thorough  knowledge  of  the  sciences  and  arts  were  be- 
ing acquired,  habits  of  industry,  and  a love  of  intelligent  labor 
would  be  attained.  There  must  be  no  favored  classes ; all  must  join 
in  these  exercises,  whether  rich  or  poor,  high  or  low,  male  or 
female. 

The  course  of  instruction  must  be  eminently  practical,  in  order 
that  every  day  spent  in  College  should  be  made  profitable  to  the 
student,  and  that  years  should  not  be  squandered  in  acquiring  a 
knowledge  of  the  ancient  arid  dead  languages  of  past  ages,  to  the 
exclusion  of  the  more  valuable  knowlegc  of  those  branches  which 
relate  to  the  present,  with  its  boundless  fields  unexplored.  Other 
Colleges  all  over  the  world,  are  devoting  their  best  years  to  teach- 


11 

ing  Latin,  Greek  and  Hebrew,  and  no  student  can  enter  them,  select 
lbs  own  course,  and  pursue  his  search  for  the  more  useful  knowl- 
edge relating  to  his  chosen  busines  in  life.  No  matter  how  little 
time  and  means  he  may  have  to  spare,  he  must  spend  years  in  the 
old  routine,  in  the  old  rut,  musty  with  age,  because  it  is  in  the 
regular  course.  One  great  aim  of  our  modern  Industrial  Colleges, 
is  to  build  up  and  maintain  a class  of  institutions,  to  supply  a 
want  long  felt,  for  the  benefit  of  that  large  and  increasing  army  of 
students,  who  prefer  to  acquire  a more  thorough  knowledge  of  the 
natural  sciences,  and  useful  arts,  rather  than  get  a smattering  of 
everything,  and  a thorough  knowledge  of  nothing. 

Again — the  ordinary  Colleges  are  beyond  the  reach  of  the  young 
man  of  limited  means,  and  of  the  young  lady  of  any  station,  am- 
bition or  accomplishments.  Their  doors  are  closed  to  the  poor, 
virtually,  from  the  great  expense  required,  and  are  absolutely 
closed  to  girls  and  young  women,  through  the  prevalence  of  that 
remnant  of  barbarous  ages,  which  holds  that  man  is  the  lord  of 
creation,  and  woman  his  inferior,  and  only  entitled  to  such  privi- 
leges as  he  sees  fit  to  bestow  upon  her. 

It  is  one  of  the  chief  aims  of  this  College  to  break  down  these 
barriers  which  belong  to  the  darker  ages  of  the  past,  and  open 
these  doors  to  any  of  God’s  people,  whether  high  or  low  in  social 
circles,  rich  or  poor,  white  or  black,  man  or  woman.  It  is  not  in 
accordance  with  the  spirit  of  the  age,  or  the  liberality  of  our  State 
or  National  Government,  to  exalt  the  strong,  the  wealthy  or  the 
favored  few,  and  trample  upon  the  rights  of  the  weak,  the  lowly, 
and  the  poor. 

Our  State  is  one  in  which  manual  labor  must  ever  be  encour- 
aged, respected  and  recognized  as  honorable  and  commendable. 
Our  vast  and  varied  undeveloped  resources  invite  the  laborer  to 
every  field  and  branch  of  industry.  Millions  of  acres  of  the  most 
beautiful  and  fertile  land  that  the  sun  ever  shone  upon,  lie  within 
our  borders,  as  wild  and  uncultivated  as  the  unexplored  regions  of 
Central  Africa.  Our  mines  of  richest  minerals  are  almost  undis- 
turbed by  the  pick  and  shovel,  waiting  for  skill,  knowledge,  and 
labor,  to  develop  incalculable  wealth.  Millions  of  dollars  arc 
yearly  sent  off  to  foreign  nations  and  distant  States,  to  purchase 


12 

a thousand  varieties  of  manufactured  goods,  that  can  bo  produced 
as  well  at  home.  Our  State  is  one  vast  storehouse  of  undeveloped 
wealth,  waiting  for  the  labor  that  alone  can  make  it  available. 
No  where  in  the  wide  world  is  there  a broader  or  more  inviting 
field  for  every  branch  of  industry,  and  no  where  is  the  laborer 
more  liberally  rewarded.  Our  material  prosperity  as  a State  and 
people,  is  entirely  dependent  upon  the  degree  of  industry  that 
shall  characterize  our  citizens.  We  can  only  hope  to  see  labor 
cheerfully  and  generally  acquiesced  in,  as  an  honorable  and  desira- 
ble occupation,  when  it  is  respected,  encouraged  and  honored  by 
the  intelligent, the  refined,  and  the  educated.  Every  State  institution 
should  stamp  it  with  respectability,  honor  its  votaries,  and  encour- 
age its  general  diffusion  among  all  classes  of  our  people.  In  this 
the  “ People’s  College,”  dedicated  to  the  encouragement  and 
promotion  of  industry,  we  must  aim  to  make  labor  attractive,  not 
only  to  the  boys  who  are  here  seeking  knowledge  in  their  depart- 
ment, but  to  the  girls,  who  can  never  become  accomplished  and 
thoroughly  educated  women,  without  a knowledge  of  the  art  of 
housekeeping,  and  the  best  methods  of  conducting  every- house- 
hold occupation  with  system,  intelligence,  and  womanly  grace. 
The  most  alarming  feature  of  our  present  system  of  educating  our 
girls,  is  the  almost  total  disregard  of  those  branches  known  as  the 
useful  and  practical,  that  will  prepare  them  for  the  proper  dis- 
charge of  the  best;  and  noblest  duties  of  rational  and  intelligent 
women.  Our  fashionable  boarding  schools  for  girls  are  too  often 
but  the  nurseries  of  all  the  follies,  and  frivolous,  trifling  super- 
ficial acquirements,  that  totally  unfit  them  for  the  important  duties, 
higher  enjoyments,  and  nobler  works  of  rational  life.  They  are 
instructed  in  the  various  minutse  of  etiquette  and  popular  accom- 
plishments, that  vitiate  the  taste,  dwarf  the  mind,  and  direct  the 
thoughts  in  pursuit  of  vanities,  that  can  never  satisfy  a true  and 
noble  woman.  We  then  close  the  doors  of  our  Colleges  in  their 
faces,  and  exclude  them  from  a fair  competition  with  boys  and 
young  men  of  their  own  age,  in  the  higher  branches,  that  are  cal- 
culated to  discipline  the  mind,  enlarge  the  understanding,  elevate 
the  aims,  tastes  and  desires,  and  qualify  them  for  the  most  exalted 
places  in  society.  We  exclude  them  from  the  learned  professions 


13 

which  lead  most  directly  to  preferment,  position,  influence  and 
power.  We  deny  them  the  ballot,  the  acknowledged  instrument  for 
the  preservation  of  our  liberties  and  the  maintainance  of  our  rights, 
against  injustice,  oppression  and  tyranny.  After  having  thus  shut 
them  out  from  the  acquirement  of  knowledge,  excluded  them  from 
fair  competition  in  the  race  for  worldly  honors  and  power,  and  de- 
prived them  of  all  participation  in  the  enactment  and  administra- 
tion of  laws,  under  a professed  Ilepublican  Government,  the  wise 
men  cooly  turn  round  and  assert  that  they  are  intellectually  our 
inferiors,  incapable  of  high  attainments  in  science,  art  and  general 
education.  If  they  are,  it  has  yet  to  be  demonstrated  by  giving 
them  equal  advantages  with  us,  in  all  of  the  means  we  use,  and 
the  aids  we  call  to  our  assistance.  I am  proud  to  say  that  it  is  one 
of  the  aims  of  this  College  to  break  down  these  barriers,  musty  with 
age, — as  unjust  as  they  are  ancient,  and  open  our  doors  wide 
to  the  anxious  seekers  for  knowledge,  extending  to  all,  regardless 
of  sex,  color,  or  condition,  equal  privileges  and  equal  rights,  in 
every  department.  Had  our  boys  for  successive  generations,  been 
taught  that  the  great  aim  of  life  was  to  excel  in  senseless  small  talk, 
and  ball  room  grace,  to  wear  a faultless  coat  and  a fancy  neck-tie, 
to  cultivate  small  feet,  soft  hands,  and  a captivating  moustache, 
to  discard  every  useful  occupation  as  ungenteel  and  degrading ; 
been  excluded  from  Colleges,  from  the  learned  professions,  and 
from  any  participation  in  the  affairs  of  government ; taught  that 
manual  labor  was  vulgar,  and  that  the  chief  end  of  man  was  to  get 
married  at  eighteen,  how  much  superior  would  we  have  been  in- 
tellectually, to  our  wives  and  sisters,  think  you  ! I apprehend 
that  under  such  training,  for  even  a dozen  generations,  Danial 
Websters  would  have  been  full  as  rare  among  men,  as  Anna  Dick- 
insons are  to-day  among  women. 

If  our  College  only  succeeds  in  aiding  in  these  great  reforms, 
ennobling  labor  and  elevating  the  laborer  in  public  estimation, 
placing  him  where  he  belongs,  in  the  front  rank  of  society,  with 
an  education  inferior  to  none  in  all  that  is  useful  and  available, 
and  leads  off  in  trampling  into  the  dust  the  old  prejudice  against 
educating  our  girls  and  boys  alike,  and  together,  it  will  amply  re- 
pay the  coming  generations  in  this  dissemination  of  correct  ideas, 
far  more  than  it  has,  or  can  cost. 


14 

In  the  selection  of  President  and  Professors  thus  far  made,  we 
have  aimed  to  procure  those  only  who  accord  with  these  ideas, 
upon  the  successful  demonstration  of  which  I believe  the  future 
usefulness  of  this  institution  depends,  in  a great  measure. 

I am  confident  that  we  have  been  remarkably  fortunate  in  our 
choice  of  the  men  selected  to  undertake  this  great  work,  and* 
carry  it  on  to  a triumphant  termination.  But  if  any  should  fail 
to  meet  the  expectation  of  the  friends  of  the  cause  in  the  future, 
a3  time  and  work  shall  demonstrate,  they  will  drop  out  of  the 
ranks,  and  their  places  be  filled  with  new  recruits.  Men  may 
fail,  but  the  great  reform  cannot;  it  is  founded  upon  justice, 
equality,  and  the  purest  principles  of  republican  simplicity,  and 
is  the  great  requirement  of  our  State  and  country.  We  have 
already  passed  through  the  stages  of  doubt,  ridicule,  reproach, 
slander,  ignorant  fault  finding,  and  malicious  misrepresentation, 
unscathed.  We  shall  never  turn  back  to  conciliate  the  enemies, 
whose  harmless  shafts  have  been  hurled  in  vain  for  more  than 
eleven  years.  At  every  step  of  advance  we  see  new  light  ahead ; 
the  dark  days  of  despondency  and  gloom  have  vanished  before 
unyielding  faith,  and  tireless  work. 

We  do  not  expect  unmeasured  prosperity  and  cloudless  skies  in 
the  future  ; mistakes  will  occur,  and  errors  of  judgment  attend  all 
human  undertakings ; but  so  long  as  we  are  not  too  wise  to  learn, 
they  only  delay,  never  defeat  a good  work,  if  the  workers  are 
true  to  themselves  and  the  cause.  Eternal  vigilance  is  the  price 
of  Liberty,  no  more  surely  than  is  unyielding  persistence  the  price 
of  Success  in  all  great  reforms. 

Colleges  and  Universities,  in  the  true  sense  of  the  term,  do  not 
rise  up  in  a day,  or  a generation  ; they  are  of  slow  growth,  like 
the  giant  oak.  Weak  in  the  beginning,  they  strengthen  with  age, 
and  rocked  with  the  winds,  and  rent  with  convulsions,  they  grow  on , 
breasting  the  storm  and  towering  aloft,  as  centuries  roll  by,  annually 
shedding  from  their  massive  branches  countless  germs  of  other 
little  oaks,  from  which  in  time  grow  up  mighty  forests. 

So  with  these  institutions  of  learning  : small  in  the  beginning, 
but  strengthening  with  years,  until  like  Cambridge,  Harvard,  and 
Yale,  they  number  among  their  students  the  greatest  minds  and 


15 

most  eminent  statesmen,  orators,  authors,  poets  and  divines  of  the 
age.  Who  of  us  can  foresee  the  future  of  this  Institution,  -which 
we  this  day  dedicate  to  the  education  of  the  working  people  of  Iowa  ? 

It  needs  no  prophet  to  foretell  that  its  influence  upon  the  youth 
of  these  classes,  must  in  no  very  distant  future  be  felt  far  and 
wide.  We  may  not  live  to  see  the  day,  but  the  time  will  surely 
come  in  which  graduates  of  the  Iowa  Agricultural  College  will  be 
found  among  the  most  eminent  men  and  women  that  our  State  or 
the  country  will  produce.  Educated  to  respect  the  laborer  in  any 
honorable  persuit,  to  practice  industry  in  their  school  days,  incul- 
cating correct  principles,  pure  morals,  free  from  prejudice,  bigotry, 
and  false  pride,  they  cannot  fail  to  attain  the  highest  positions  of 
honor  and  trust  among  their  fellow  men,  and  by  their  lives  honor 
the  institution  to  whose  fostering  care  they  are  so  largely  indebted. 

The  names  and  deeds  of  Presidents,  Senators,  Governors,  and  thou 
sands  of  the  highest  officials  of  the  present  day,  will  soon  fade  from 
the  memory  of  the  ever  changing  world,  but  the  remembrance  of 
this  institution — which  we  this  day  inaugurate — will  be  kept  green 
in  the  memory  of  the  ever  increasing  band  of  noble  men  and  wo- 
men, who  will  for  all  time  look  back  to  it  as  their  early  instructor  in 
the  most  valuable  of  human  knowledge.  If  its  founders  receive  no 
other  reward,  their  great  work  will  not  be  forgotten,  and  their  names 
may  be  kept  in  remembrance,  by  some  among  the  thousands  of  the 
noblest  boys  and  girls,  who  shall  ever  adorn  our  State. 

PRESENTATION 

OF  THE  CHARTER  AND  SEAL  TO  THE  PRESIDENT,  BY  GOV  MERRILL, 

WITH  THE  FOLLOWING  REMARKS  : 

Mr.  President  : — I have  been  charged  by  the  Committee  with 
the  duty  of  delivering  into  your  hands  the  Charter  and  Seal  of  the 
State  Agricultural  College.  Your  acceptance  of  these  emblems 
clothes  you  with  the  honor,  as  well  as  the  responsibilities,  attending 
the  management  of  this  most  important  Institution. 

Permit  me  to  congratulate  you,  sir,  upon  the  flattering  prospects 
which  attend  your  inauguration.  The  men  who  are  associated 
with  you  in  the  work  of  instruction,  are  able  and  earnest  men,  en- 
thusiastic in  the  mission^  whereunto  they  have  been  called.  The 
hopes  and  good  wishes  of  the  people  of  the  State  are  centered  upon 
you,  eager  for  your  success.  Your  connection  with  the  College 
dates  from  its  opening  chapters,  and  therefore  its  policy  is  yours  to 
originate,  shape  and  establish,  with  no  mistakes  of  others  to  corect, 
with  no  errors  of  the  past  to  redeem  by  the  success  of  the  future. 

The  munificence  of  the  General  Government  has  enabled  us  to 
establish  this  College.  To  a State  like  ours,  whose  wealth  of  soil, 
healthful  climate  and  accessible  markets,  render  it  the  very  para- 
dise of  the  farmer,  this  bounty  has  come  with  a peculiar  and  hap- 
py significance. 

To  the  gifts  of  Providence  let  us  add  the  highest  improvements 
of  men,  not  contenting  ourselves  until  we  have  reared  a generation 
of  farmers  whose  skilled  labor  shall  unite  with  the  fertility  of  the 
soil,  and  beget  the  largest  harvest  which  nature  and  science  can 
produce.  We  have  the  men  to  educate — the  descendants  of  the 
pioneers,  whose  brave  hearts,  catching  a glimps  of  the  future  pros- 
perity which  we  are  even  now  beginning  to  realize,  were  nerved 


17 

to  withstand  tlie  privations  and  sufferings  of  the  frontier.  We 
have  a land  flowing  with  milk  and  honey,  new  and  not  exhausted 
by  long  years  of  productions. 

Here,  then,  let  utility  of  scientific  labor  be  demonstrated. 
From  this  institution  let  there  go  forth,  in  annual  procession,  a 
line  of  educated,  intelligent  husbandmen,  trained  in  the  secrets  of 
nature  which  underlie  their  profession,  and  filled  with  an  earnest, 
devoted  enthusiasm  for  their  work. 

To  you,  sir,  and  your  associates,  I am  happy  to  give  expression 
to  the  personal  and  official  confidence  I cherish  in  your  fitness  for 
your  work.  No  better  wish  can  be  expressed  than  that  your  suc- 
cess may  be  commensurate  with  its  importance.  May  the  fruits 
of  your  labors  be  as  abundant  and  valuable  as  the  fruits  of  the  soil 
whose  mysteries  you  are  called  to  reveal. 


PRESENTATION 

OF  THE  KEYS  TO  THE  PRESIDENT,  BY  HON.  JOHN  RUSSELL, 

WITH  THE  FOLLOWING  ADDRESS : 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen  : The  part  assigned  to  me  in  the  pro- 
gramme of  to-day,  is  to  make  a formal  presentation  of  the  keys  of 
this  noble  building  to  the  gentleman  who  has  been  selected  to  fill 
the  difficult  and  responsible  position  of  President  of  the  Iowa 
Agricultural  Coll  ege. 

In  performing  this  duty  it  may  not  be  inappropriate  to  refer, 
very  briefly,  to  the  history  of  this  building,  and  to  the  difficulties, 
that,  from  time  to  time,  have  fallen  in  the  pathway  of  those  whose 
business  it  has  been  to  attend  to  the  interest  of  the  institution  in 
its  conception  and  developement. 

The  Legislature  of  the  State  in  its  session  of  1858,  first  passed  a 
law  providing  for  the  establishment  of  an  Agricultural  College, 
and  made  an  appropriation  of  ten  thousand  dollars  for  the  pur- 
chase of  a farm  on  which  to  locate  it.  The  business  was  confided 
to  a Board  of  Trustees,  consisting  of  a member  from  each  judicial 
district,  and  elected  by  the  Legislature.  After  due  deliberation 
this  farm  was  purchased,  and  the  institution  finally  located  here. 

3 


18 

Donations  were  received  from  the  citizens  of  the  surrounding 
neighborhood,  and  Story  County,  then  young  and  comparatively 
unpopulated,  very  liberally  donated  ten  thousand  dollars  in  bonds 
for  the  benefit  of  the  institution,  which  are  now  being  honorably 
paid  from  time  to  time,  as  fast  as  the  means  are  received  into  the 
County  Treasury.  Improvements  on  the  farm  have  been  all 
made ; and  the  fine  stock  now  here,  has  been  all  purchased  by 
the  aid  received  in  this  manner,  without  a single  dollar  of  appro- 
priation from  the  State  Treasury  for  those  purposes.  Up  to  the 
session  of  the  Legislature  in  1864  no  appropriation  had  been  made 
for  the  erection  of  a College  building.  At  that  time  a law  was 
passed,  providing  for  the  commencement  of  one,  the  cost  of  which 
should  not  exceed  fifty  thousand  dollars,  and  twenty  thousand  was 
appropriated  for  the  commencement  and  prosecution  of  the  work. 
The  Board  of  of  Trustees  procured  and  adopted  plans,  and  work  was 
commenced.  As  experience  afterwards  demonstrated,  the  architect 
employed  proved  to  be  totally  incompetent.  He  was  finally  dis- 
missed, and  Mr.  C.  A.  Dunham  of  Burlington,  employed  to  modify 
the  plans,  and  to  superintend  the  erection  of  the  building.  Great 
changes  were  made  in  the  original  design,  the  result  of  which  is 
seen  in  the  noble  structure  in  which  we  are  now  congregated. 
Perhaps  it  was  fortunate  for  the  institution  that  an  incompetent 
architect  was  at  first  employed.  The  Trustees  were  bound  by  the 
terms  of  the  law  making  the  appropriation  to  procure  plans,  the 
total  estimated  cost  of  which,  when  the  building  should  be  com- 
pleted, would  not  exceed  fifty  thousand  dollars.  The  architect  made 
out  and  swore  to  his  estimates,  which  were  under  the  amount 
named  in  the  law.  The  Trustees  were  guided  by  them,  and  in 
good  faith  complied  with  the  law.  As  was  afterwards  demonstrated, 
his  ignorance  and  incompetence  was  the  cause  of  the  adoption  of 
much  more  extensive  plans  than  fifty  thousand  dollars  ever  could 
have  paid  for.  The  State  was  thus  saved  from  being  placed  in 
the  ridiculous  position  of  being  committed  to  the  erection  of  a 
building  totally  inadequate  to  meet  the  wants  of  even  to-day,  the 
first  formal  opening  of  the  College.  The  total  cost  of  this  building 
Is  less  than  one  hundred  and  twenty- five  thousand  dollars.  I think 
the  experience  of  to-day  proves  that  it  is  not  even  now  of  sufficient 
capacity  to  meet  the  demands  which  will  be  made  upon  it. 


19 

Time,  I find,  will  not  permit  me  to  go  into  further  details  in 
connection  with  the  history  of  the  building.  Suffice  it  to  say,  that 
the  difficulties  which  have  been  met  on  every  hand  from  its 
commencement  until  now,  have  been  numerous  and  perplexing ; 
but  by  persevering  effort  they  have  been  ultimately  overcome. 

I think  I can  say  on  behalf  of  all  who  have  had  official  connec- 
tion with  the  enterprise,  that  they  have,  each  of  them,  done  every- 
thing for  the  interests  of  the  Institution  and  the  State,  according  to 
their  best  judgment  and  ability.  Many  mistakes  have  been  made  ; 
many  things  that  have  been  done  might  have  been  done  differently 
were  they  to  be  done  again  by  the  same  parties.  After  all,  the 
people  of  Iowa  have  received  the  best  service  that  the  different 
Boards  of  Trustees  were  capable  of  rendering  to  them.  On 
their  behalf,  I would  say,  “ forgive  them  their  sins,”  and  give 
them  credit  for  doing  the  best  they  could. 

In  the  presentation  of  these  keys  to  the  President  of  the  College, 
it  may  not  be  inappropriate  to  refer  briefly  to  the  keys  of  knowl- 
edge that  have,  from  age  to  age,  been  presented  to  the  human  race 
by  those  great  minds  whose  discoveries  and  revelations  have  so 
largely  contributed  to  the  development  and  civilization  of  the 
present  age. 

Without  going  further  back  than  the  beginning  of  our  Christian 
era,  W'e  find  a young  carpenter  of  Judea  presenting  to  the  Doctors 
of  Divinity — to  the  crowds  of  curious  listeners — to  a selected 
twelve  confidential  disciples— to  the  Lawyers,  the  Scribes  and 
Pharisees  of  His  day,  the  key  to  a new  Religion,  embracing  tlie 
most  elevated  ideas  of  God  and  man  ; the  purest  and  most  compre- 
hensive system  of  morality — revealing  to  the  human  soul  the  grand 
doctrine  of  everlasting  life  and  the  immortality  of  man.  Over 
eighteen  hundred  years  have  passed,  and  we  are  just  now  realizing 
in  their  practical  application  to  human  life  in  all  its  varied  relations 
those  great  truths,  the  key  to  which  the  Saviour  furnished,  when, 
from  the  mountain  top,  he  proclaimed  the  elevated  principles  of 
his  moral  and  religious  revolution.  As  age  succeeds  age,  and  gen- 
erations follow  each  other  on  the  great  world’s  stage,  his  key  will 
continue  to  be  used  to  open  higher  doors,  leading  into  a nobler  and 
more  elevated  conception  of  the  practical  application  ot  his  prin- 
ciples to  the  every  day  affairs  of  human  life. 


20 

It  is  not  very  long  ago  since  Columbus  furnished  the  key  of  this 
grand  land  of  ours  to  the  nations  of  the  old  world.  That  key  was 
forged  in  his  great  mind.  He  was  able  to  see  what  none  before 
him  had  been  able  to  perceive.  Through  much  opposition  from 
the  superstitious  of  his  age,  and  through  many  difficulties,  he 
finally  succeeded  in  opening  the  doors  of  this  mighty  Continent  to 
the  crowded  and  time  worn  nationalities  of  all  quarters  of  the 
globe.  Look  at  the  stupendous  results  flowing  from  this  concep- 
tion in  the  brain  of  Columbus ! Many  nations  have  been  born 
almost  in  a day.  The  greatest,  most  powerful  and  intelligent 
nationality  on  earth  has  been  brought  into  existence  and  grown 
up  here.  But  our  loved  Iowa,  one  of  the  grandest  and  the  noblest 
of  the  commonwealths  composing  it,  is  only  a small  part  of  the 
vast  and  almost  boundless  territory. 

About  two  hundred  and  sixty  years  ago,  Gallileo  invented  the 
first  telescope.  He  furnished  the  key  to  our  modern  system  of 
astronomy.  He  opened  to  the  human  soul  the  doors  of  grandeur, 
sublimity  and  immensity.  The  vast  system  of  revolving  worlds 
composing  our  solar  system — their  immense  magnitude — their 
distance  from  each  other — the  rapidity  of  their  motions — the  per- 
fect order  and  harmony  exhibited  in  the  working  of  the  grand 
machinery — open  to  our  minds  a tangible  demonstration  of  the 
infinite  attributes  of  the  Almighty,  so  overwhelmingly  sublime 
and  magnificent  as  to  be  far  beyond  the  grasp  of  our  finite  con- 
ceptions. 

Without  the  key  provided  by  Gallileo,  knowledge  of  modern 
astronomy  could  not  have  had  an  existence. 

But  a short  time  ago  Benjamin  Franklin  furnished  the  world 
with  the  key  to  the  Electric  Telegraph,  which  Morse  in  our  own 
day  has  so  well  and  so  ably  employed.  Time  and  space  are  by  its 
use  practically  annihilated,  so  far  as  the  transmission  of  human 
thought  is  concerned.  An  idea  conceived  in  the  brain  of  any  one 
may  be  to-day  transmitted  in  a moment  to  almost  any  portion  of 
the  civilized  world.  Mountains  and  rivers,  and  even  the  great 
ocean,  form  no  barriers  to  the  Electric  Telegraph.  To-day  the 
thoughts  of  human  minds  are  traveling  on  the  wings  of  the  light- 
ning in  the  deepest  and  almost  fathomless  recesses  of  the  Atlantic 


21 

Ocean.  Where  no  human  eye  can  penetrate,  and  where  no 
human  voice  can  ever  be  heard,  the  silent,  yet  speaking  thoughts 
of  man’s  soul  finds  a sure  and  uninterupted  highway. 

Thomas  Jefferson,  in  the  immortal  declaration  of  American 
Independence,  first  furnished  to  civilization  the  key  to  a true 
system  of  human  government.  The  great  idea  of  the  equality  of 
human  rights  had  never  before  formed  the  basis  of  any  system 
erected  among  men.  It  is  true,  Republics  had  risen  and  fallen, 
but  none  were  ever  based  on  the  great  central  idea  of  the  declara- 
tion of  American  Independence.  To-day  we  are  only  yet  using 
the  key  which  Jefferson  furnished,  and  are  opening  up  more  fully 
the  doors  of  human  brotherhood.  We  have  all  reason  to  thank 
Almighty  God  that  our  own  glorious— because  good — State  stands 
foremost  of  all  the  world  in  her  authoritative  practical  recognition 
of  the  enobling  truth. 

These  are  only  a very  few  specimens  of  the  innumerable  keys  of 
knowledge  that  have  been  from  age  to  age  presented  to  the  human 
race.  In  the  coming  future,  as  in  the  past,  we  may  expect  new 
ones  will  be  furnished,  that  will  be  used,  to  open  wide  the  doors 
leading  into  God’s  great  and  infinite  library  of  useful  knowledge. 
We  may  expect  that  the  ever  aspiring  mind  will  continue  to 
advance  in  acquiring  a knowledge  of  all  that  pertains  to  its  hap- 
piness in  this  and  in  all  worlds. 

Mr.  President : In  the  presentation  of  these  keys  to  you,  Sir,  as 
the  first  President  of  this  young  institution,  I would  say,  on  behalf 
of  the  Board  of  Trustees  and  the  State  of  Iowa,  that  we  gladly 
confide  them  to  your  keeping.  We  believe  we  have  found  in  you 
the  man  who  will  be  able  to  make  the  Iowa  Agricultural  College 
all  that  could  be  desired  or  expected  of  it.  Hoping  and  trusting 
that  this  institution  in  your  hands — with  the  assistance  of  the  able 
and  accomplished  ladies  and  gentlemen  who  may  be  your  asso- 
ciates— will  prove  of  incalculable  benefit  to  the  great  industrial 
community  of  our  State ; hoping  that  the  devolopement  of  the 
practical  industries  will  be  kept  in  view  as  the  leading  idea 
in  all  the  instruction  imparted  here ; hoping  that  your  success  in 
every  respect  will  be  satisfactory  to  all  the  people  of  this  great 
State — I now  formally  confide  to  your  keeping  the  keys  of  this 
magnificent  building. 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS 

OF  HON.  A.  S.  WELCH,  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  IOWA  STATE  AGRICULTURAL  COLLEGE. 


Gentlemen  of  the  Board  : — I accept  this  charter,  and  the  accom- 
paning  keys  and  seal.  I receive  them  as  symbolizing  the  authority 
you  bestow  and  the  confidence  you  repose  in  me.  I thank  you, 
both  on  my  own  behalf  and  that  of  my  associates,  for  the  expres- 
sions of  regard  toward  us  with  which  they  are  tendered.  I appre- 
ciate the  greatness  of  the  trust  and  the  distinction  it  confers. 
Beyond  question  I express  the  sentiment  of  my  co-laborers,  when 
I say  in  managing  the  affairs  of  this  important  enterprise,  we  shall 
look  to  you  for  encouragement  and  support,  and  to  God  for  wis- 
dom. You  will  find  me  always  candid  in  the  utterance  of  my  own 
views,  but  faithful  and  earnest  in  carrying  out  yours,  when  legally 
expressed ; and  as  I now  willingly  take  on  myself  the  responsi- 
bilities of  the  office  of  executive  in  this  new  enterprise,  so  will  I, 
as  willingly  resign  them  to  another  whenever  it  shall  appear  that 
such  action  will  best  promote  its  interest  and  progress. 

The  opening  of  a new  Institution  of  learning  in  a new  State  is 
an  event  of  no  little  significance.  It  proclaims  that  the  period  of 
exclusive  devotion  to  the  animal  wants  is  past,  and  that  the  period 
in  which  the  wants  of  the  intellect  successfully  assert  their  claim 
to  public  attention,  has  begun.  The  beginnings  of  these  periods 
in  the  olden  time  were  separated  from  each  other,  by  the  interven- 
tion of  centuries.  Slowly,  laboriously,  and  with  many  partial 
relapses,  the  savage  tribes  emerged  from  barbarism,  and  fused  into 
nations — and  nations,  when  the  industry  and  commerce  of  many 
generations  had  produced  comparative  wealth  and  leisure,  recog- 
nizing tardily  their  own  intellectual  necessities,  planted,  at  last, 
the  rude  germs  that  have  since,  as  the  centuries  revolved,  grown 
into  the  great  Universities  of  Europe. 


23 

But  modern  science  and  art  have  wonderfully  quickened,  nay, 
even  reversed,  the  succession  of  those  typical  events  which 
marked,  in  long  intervals,  the  progress  of  nations.  No  longer  does 
learning  await  the  culmination  of  material  prosperity.  The  rail- 
road no  longer  follows,  but  leads  civilization.  The  shriek  of  the 
whistle  startles  the  wild  bison  of  the  plains.  Telegraph  wires  span 
the  wilderness.  The  cottage  of  the  first  settler  and  the  school  house 
stand  where  the  plough  has  hardly  yet  broken  the  virgin  soil.  A 
magnificent  structure  devoted  to  industrial  science,  rising  towards 
heaven  with  its  noble  towers,  is  finished,  furnished,  and  peopled 
with  students,  ere  the  seventh  harvest  is  gathered.  The  college 
and  the  new  orchard  are  planted  side  by  side,  and  will  ripen  their 
fruits  together.  Here  the  eras  of  toil  and  of  culture,  once  separated 
by  a century,  are  blended  into  one.  Learning  and  labor,  leaping 
the  gulf  that  lay  between,  have  joined  hands,  each  lending  aid  and 
dignity  to  the  other. 

Such,  my  friends,  are  the  startling  events  which  give  significance 
to  the  hour  in  which  we  dedicate  these  halls  to  the  progress  of 
industrial  science.  But  scarcely  of  less  interest  than  the  novel 
events  that  distinguished  the  opening  of  this  new  institution,  is  the 
fact  that  the  plan  of  organization  which  we  have  adopted,  commits 
it  to  the  promotion  of  two  great  and  salutary  educational  reforms. 

One  of  these  is  the  withdrawal  of  the  ancient  classics  from  the 
place  of  honor  which  they  have  largely  held  in  our  college  curri- 
cula, and  the  liberal  substitution  of  those  branches  of  natural 
science  which  underlie  the  industries  of  this  beautiful  State. 

The  other  is  the  free  admission  of  young  women,  on  equal 
terms  with  young  men,  to  all  the  privileges  and  honors  which  the 
institution  can  bestow. 

It  is  fitting  that  a college,  dedicated  under  circumstances  which 
find  scarcely  a parallel  in  history,  should,  regardless  of  precedent 
however  honored  by  time,  establish  its  laws  and  arrange  its  courses 
of  study  on  the  principles  of  wisdom  and  justice.  Of  wisdom,  in 
determining  that  the  learning  gathered  in  these  halls  shall  con- 
tribute to  the  success  and  dignity  of  labor.  Of  justice,  in  extend- 
ing to  a large  class  of  students  opportunities  of  which  they  have 
been  hitherto,  in  great  measure  unjustly  deprived. 


24 

The  occasion  will  warrant  the  giving  of  the  hour  to  such  in 
elucidation  of  these  two  reforms  as  will  present  concisely  their 
nature,  scope,  value  and  purpose. 

The  question  as  to  the  comparative  worth  of  the  different 
branches  of  knowledge,  is  one  of  vital  moment  to  the  progress  of 
education.  The  values  of  every  branch  of  knowledge  spring 
from  two  different  sources : 

1st.  Its  effectiveness  as  a means  of  intellectual  discipline. 

2nd.  The  degree  of  its  adaptation  to  further  the  interests  and 
employments  of  life. 

It  seems  singular  that  the  learned  world  has  hitherto  held  that 
discipline  is  an  invariable  resultant  from  the  acquisition  of  knowl- 
edge, and  that  each  branch  of  knowledge  confers,  of  necessity,  an 
increase  of  intellectual  power  peculiar  to  itself  in  quality  and  kind. 
As  well  might  one  say  that  the  anvil  gives  brawn  to  the  arm  of 
the  blacksmith,  whereas  it  is  the  exertion  of  continually  repeated 
blows  alone  that  lends  hardness  and  power  to  the  muscle.  In  like 
manner  it  is  not  the  knowledge  acquired,  but  the  protracted  strain 
of  the  intellect  in  the  act  of  acquiring  it  that  brings  intellectual 
strength  and  acuteness.  Disciplined  power  is  the  consequence  that 
flows,  not  from  the  matter  studied,  but  from  the  manner  of  study- 
ing it.  Given  any  science  whose  classifications  are  wide  and  phil- 
osophical, and  whose  deductions  are  logical  and  rigid,  and  it 
becomes  a sure  occasion  of  genuine  descipline  only  when  the  stu- 
dent masters  its  difficulties  by  an  intense,  long  continued,  absorb- 
ing, all-conquering  effort.  No  matter  what  objects  any  science  or 
literature  presents  to  the  senses — no  matter  how  countless  the  facts 
is  furnished  for  memory  to  gather,  or  how  complicated  the  prob- 
lems to  be  analyzed  and  solved,  it  never  did  and  never  will  impart 
one  iota  of  valuable  strength  to  the  idler  who  dandles  and  drones 
over  its  pages.  On  the  other  hand,  whether  the  subject  of  study 
be  mathematical  or  linguistic,  metaphysical  or  scientific,  if  its 
abstruse  processes  be  met  with  a determined  grapple  that  never 
relaxes  until  it  overthrows  the  obstacle,  then  an  accession  of  intel- 
lectual power  will  be  the  inevitable  result. 

If  the  view  we  have  taken  be  correct,  the  gaining  of  disciplined 
ability  depends  more  on  the  teacher  who  inculcates  the  method  and 
mode  of  acquiring,  than  upon  the  science  that  supplies  the  facts  to 


25 

be  acquired,  and  far  more  on  tlie  pupil  than  on  either.  Trained 
faculties,  which  under  the  impulsions  of  the  will,  concentrate  with 
resistless  energy,  constitute  one  of  the  elements  of  greatness.  They 
are  the  offspring  of  the  severest  toil,  protracted  for  years,  and  they 
are  in  the  possession  of  those  men  only  who  are  most  terribly  in 
earnest.  It  matters  little  whether  such  men  are  in  the  Cabinet  or 
in  the  field,  whether  they  build  cities  or  railroads,  whether  they 
engage  in  large  mercantile  or  large  agricultural  operations — it  is 
in  every  case  the  steady  systematic  toil  which,  while  it  accom- 
plishes the  outward  object,  gives  disciplined  power  to  the  toiler. 

Do  all  studies  furnish  equally,  then,  the  incentives  to  that  sus- 
tained and  concentrated  application  that  ultimates  in  disciplined 
intellectual  energy  ? Certainly  not.  All  studies  are  not  equally 
full  in  the  matter  they  embody — not  equally  complete  and  com- 
prehensive in  the  classifications  they  exhibit — not  equally  per- 
fect in  their  methods  or  reasoning.  The  kind  of  matter,  whether 
words,  or  qualities,  or  things,  is  of  far  less  importance  as  furnishing 
occasions  for  systematic  effort,  than  the  variety  and  completeness 
of  generalizations  and  deductions.  For  example,  local  geog- 
raphy, whose  matter  has  great  variety,  fails  to  induce  the  severe 
study  whose  effect  is  discipline, because  of  its  defective  classification ; 
while  arithmetic,  whose  matter  has  no  variety,  but  whose  methods 
are  systematic,  is  an  excellent  stimulant  to  consecutive  thought. 
In  mathematics,  in  language  and  in  science,  are  found  many  branch- 
es which  answer  the  conditions  on  which  a habit  of  intense  study 
may  bo  formed,  but  in  the  whole  catalogue  of  studies  none  meet 
these  conditions  so  completely  as  the  Natural  Sciences.  Tho  vast 
variety  of  beautiful  objects  they  offer  to  the  eye,  at  once  attracts 
and  rivets  tho  attention.  The  immense  vocabulary  which  their 
nomenclature  has  made,  can  never  be  compassed  without  a power- 
ful exertion  that  renders  the  memory  ready  and  retentive.  Their 
wide  and  exhaustive  classification,  and  their  innumerable  exam- 
ples of  the  inductive  and  deductive  processes  of  reasoning,  keep 
the  reflective  faculties  in  a state  of  constant  tension.  On  the  mere 
question  of  providing  for  a superior  discipline,  havo  we  not  acted 
wisely  in  compelling  the  old-time  studies  of  Latin  and  Greek  to 
give  place  to  Modern  Science  ? 

4 


26 

But  there  are  various  kinds  of  discipline  which  differ  widely 
from  each  other  in  value  and  purpose.  There  Is  a kind  of  dis- 
cipline that  stands  aloof  from  the  busy  industries,  that  isolates  its 
possessor  from  the  sympathies  and  activities  of  those  around  him  ; 
a kind  of  culture  that  expends  itself  wholly  on  the  dead  Past,  and 
disdains  to  soil  its  delicate  fingers  by  contact  with  the  realities  of 
the  living  Present.  Give  us  rather,  in  unstinted  measure,  that 
genuine  culture  that  prepares  the  student  to  harmonize  with  and 
help  the  toiling  multitude.  Let  every  earnest  youth  strive  for  the 
attainment  of  that  sort  of  intellectual  power  which,  while  it  pre- 
pares him  for  the  duties  of  the  citizen,  will  enable  him  to  do 
thoroughly  and  well  his  special  work  in  the  world.  No  real  dis- 
cipline is  absolutely  without  value ; but  that  alone  is  of  the  highest 
worth  which,  in  this  brief  and  busy  life,  fits  the  worker  for  the 
work  that  lies  before  him.  The  visual  practice  which  the  sailor, 
of  necessity,  gets  upon  the  seas,  trains  his  eye  to  perceive  with 
quickness  and  accuracy  objects  which  are  far  beyond  the  reach  of 
ordinary  vision ; and  this  peculiar  perceptive  power  is  far  more  de- 
sirable to  him  than  any  ability  to  discriminate  minute  objects  which 
are  near  at  hand.  The  discipline  that  enables  the  literary  antiqua- 
rian to  decypher  the  hieroglyphics  of  Egypt,  is  of  special  moment 
to  him ; but  for  me,  who  am  no  antiquarian,  it  is  far  better  to 
attain  the  power  to  speak  and  write  English  with  ease  and  correct- 
ness. There  is  no  training  so  needfull  as  the  habit  of  mind  gained 
from  studying  the  laws  involved  in  the  very  enterprise  to  which 
one’s  life  is  to  be  given.  If  you  would  become  efficient,  all-power- 
ful, in  the  art  or  profession  you  are  to  follow,  master  the  principles 
on  which  it  rests.  You  will  find  them  numerous  and  broad  enough 
for  all  the  hours  which  this  short  life  will  give  you  outside  of 
actual  toil.  The  requisite  preparation  for  the  practice  of  an  art  is 
to  be  found  only  in  the  study  of  the  science  which  underlies  it. 
In  the  dissecting  room,  by  actual  practice  of  the  hand  and  the 
eye,  must  the  surgeon  attain  the  skill  and  the  coolness  which  liis 
vocation  demands.  In  the  studying  of  law,  common,  civil,  and 
statutory,  in  the  mastering  theoretically  of  the  rules  of  evidence 
and  the  practice  of  courts,  must  the  lawyer  find  something  of  the 
legal  acuteness  necessarily  antecedent  to  successful  practice. 


27 

Whence  comes  the  marvelous  power  of  the  naturalist  to  observe 
and  to  classify,  except  from  persistent  labor  in  the  museum,  the 
laboratory,  or  the  field?  True,  it  is  essential  that  the  tyro  should 
come  to  these  studies  with  a previous  discipline  ; but  it  is  neces- 
sary that  such  discipline  should  be  precisely  adapted  to  the  pur- 
pose in  question.  A knowledge  of  the  Greek  accents  and  of 
heathen  mythology  does  not  induce  quite  the  tone  of  mind  which 
is  preparatory  to  the  study  of  horticulture,  or  mining,  engineering, 
or  to  the  handling  of  the  surveyor’s  compass.  Nor,  indeed,  on  the 
other  hand,  would  an  extended  course  in  astronomy  eventuate  in 
the  intellectual  status  most  suitable  to  the  study  of  law.  The 
simple  truth  is,  that  there  is  no  science  or  language  which  will 
serve  as  a mental  gymnastic  for  all  pursuits  and  professions,  or  a 
panacea  for  all  intellectual  ills.  How  much  of  precious  time  and 
precious  opportunity  has  been  worse  than  wasted,  because  this  fact 
has  never  been  recognized ! A genuine  discipline  preparatory  to 
any  special  professional  study,  can  be  derived  only  from  the 
mastery  of  those  branches  most  nearly  related  to  it ; those 
branches  whose  truths  it  involves  and  employs.  Thus  Mathe- 
matics is  the  natural  gymnastic  preparatory  to  the  physical 
sciences,  specially  those  which  classify  the  laws  of  force.  Latin 
and  Greek  give  the  habit  of  thought  proper  to  the  pursuit  of 
philology. 

It  it  be  objected  that  this  principle,  rigidly  followed,  would 
destroy  the  symmetry  of  a broad  and  graceful  culture,  the  reply  is 
at  hand.  Let  the  student  add  to  the  sciences  special  to  his  purpose 
in  life,  those  sciences  which  embrace  his  duties  to  society  and  to 
his  country.  Political  enconomy,  social  science,  commercial  and 
constitutional  law,  and  moral  philosophy,  are  a harmonious  and 
beautiful  group  ; and  if  we  combine  with  these  our  own  language 
and  literature,  we  have  variety  enough  with  which  earnestness  of 
study  can  preserve  the  desirable  breadth  and  balance  of  culture. 

To  sum  it  all  up  in  a single  sentence,  we  want  a discipline 
which  will  avail  in  the  work  wre  have  in  hand — the  intellectual 
and  moral  strength  that  will  enable  us  to  do  that  work  thoroughly 
and  well. 

Such  are  the  reasons  by  which  we  have  been  guided  in  arrang- 


28 

ing  the  courses  of  study  for  the  various  departments  of  the  Iowa 
Agricultural  College.  Earnest  work  for  earnest  students ; work 
which  in  every  case  will  serve,  by  the  peculiar  culture  it  brings, 
as  a special  introduction  to  the  greater  work  that  lies  in  the  world 
outside. 

But  if  the  various  branches  which  compose  our  curricula  can 
claim  so  high  a merit  simply  as  intellectual  gymnastics,  how  much 
higher  the  rant  they  hold  when  measured  by  the  standard  of  their 
comparative  usefullness ; in  other  words,  by  the  degree  in  which, 
compared  with  many  other  branches  of  knowledge,  they  con- 
tribute to  the  welfare  and  prosperity  of  the  human  race.  The 
criterion  by  which  such  a judgment  is  reached,  can  be  appreciated 
by  the  humblest  capacity.  Clearly,  those  knowledges  arc  worth 
the  most  which  contribute  to  supply  wants  that  are  universal  and  at 
the  same  time  most  immediate  aud  urgent.  Hot  the  knowledge  that 
carries  our  thoughts  and  sympathies  away  from  real  life,  to  dwell 
among  imaginary  deities  who  conversed  languages  which  are  now 
extinct ; not  the  knowledge  that  renders  the  student  an  indifferent 
spectator  on  the  stage  where  toil  and  suffer  the  busy  millions,  but 
the  knowledge  that  brings  him  into  closer  communion  and  fellow- 
ship with  his  kin'd,  the  knowledge  that  renders  him  strong  to  help 
every  enterprise,  to  feed  the  hungry,  clothe  the  naked,  restore  the 
sick,  and  crown  each  revolving  year  with  plenty,  is  of  highest 
value.  All  sciences  are  of  value,  but  those  sciences  are  of  most 
value  which  answer  the  demands  of  universal  philanthropy. 

We  offer  you,  then,  young  gentlemen  and  ladies,  as  subjects  of 
study,  those  sciences  that  classify  the  forces  whoso  action  brings 
prosperity  to  man ; the  sciences  that  have  covered  the  land  with  a 
net-work  of  railroads,  that  have  stretched  the  telegraph  wires  from 
continent  to  continent,  that  have  connected  a thousand  cities,  and 
blended  them  into  one.  We  offer  you  the  sciences  that  system- 
atize whatever  of  beauty  or  use  the  eye  gathers  in  its  visual  range, 
that  develope  the  subtle  processes  by  which  the  dead  mould  is 
changed  into  the  marketable  product,  and  that  reveal  in  innumer- 
able instances  God’s  unfailing  love  to  his  creatures.  We  offer  you 
for  intellectual  nutrition  the  sciences  that  are  most  effectual  for 
general  culture,  most  valuable  for  the  special  discipline  which  will 


* 29 

fit  you  for  your  future  work,  and  most  conducive  to  the  welfare 
and  progress  of  the  world. 

The  intense  earnestness  of  soul  that  springs  from  a hungering 
and  thirsting  for  knowledge,  must  do  the  rest. 


EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN. 

The  great  obstacle  to  all  reform  is  prejudice.  It  is,  indeed,  the 
agency  through  which  the  Arch  Fiend  strives  with  most  effect  to 
stay  the  progress  of  the  human  race.  It  fetters  the  intellect,  and 
subjects  the  rays  of  truth  to  a thousand  aberrations.  It  sharpens 
the  passions,  checks  every  nobler  impulse,  crushes  all  generous  and 
liberal  sympathies,  and,  Gorgon-like,  turns  the  heart  of  man  to 
stone.  It  is  the  prolific  parent  of  obstinacy,  bigotry,  cruelty,  and 
hate.  It  eulogizes  contentment  as  the  highest  of  virtues,  and 
shudders  at  innovation  as  the  greatest  of  sins.  It  levels  its  invec- 
tive, not  at  the  individual  according  to  his  merits  or  demerits,  but 
against  class,  and  race,  and  sex.  Timid,  incredulous,  taking 
counsel  of  fear,  it  strains  at  every  gnat,  and  makes  a mountain  of 
every  mole-hill  that  lies  in  the  way  of  attainable  good. 

It  is  this  narrow  spirit  that  has  in  all  ages  arrayed  its  serried 
hosts  against  every  advance  of  humanity  towards  a better  state. 
But  though  it  has  retarded  and  baffled  for  a time  the  progress  of 
justice  and  truth,  it  has  never  wholly  paralyzed  it.  In  the  very 
constitution  of  man’s  nature,  in  its  great  underlying  laws,  it  is 
written  that  no  grand  idea  or  noble  impulse  can  ever  be  lost,  even 
though  all  the  powers  of  death  and  darkness  unite  to  destroy  it. 

“ Truth  crushed  to  earth  will  rise  again— 

The  otornal  years  of  God  are  her’s  ” 

From  the  beginning  of  the  world  to  the  end,  there  have  been 
and  will  be,  men  whose  chief  mission  in  life  is  to  doubt  and  decry 
every  movement  from  the  bad  to  the  better.  They  scoffed  at 
Noah,  yet  the  Ark  rode  upon  the  waters,  and  the  race  was  saved. 
They  gave  the  poison  to  Socrates,  but  his  philosophy  lives,  and 
will  live  to  the  end  of  time.  They  imprisoned  Gallileo,  but  could 


30 

not  stifle  one  accent  of  the  truths  he  discovered.  They  derided  the 
Baconian  philosophy  as  unworthy  and  vulgar,  yet  the  Bacohian 
philosophy  has  given  to  modern  science,  art,  and  industry,  all 
their  wonderful  triumphs.  They  proclaimed  the  African  an  inferior 
race— doomed  him,  therefore,  as  the  proper  victim  of  a terrible 
wrong,  and  fastened  his  fetters  with  links  of  steel ; but  in  God’s 
good  time  his  fetters  broke  like  brittle  glass,  and  he  walked 
forth,  conscious,  in  all  the  new  ecstacy  of  freedom,  that  though 
his  body  and  soul  were  scarred  with  the  cruelty  of  oppression— 
for  all  that,  a man  is  a man. 

And  now,  I hesitate  not  to  affirm,  that  those  who  would  check 
with  authority,  or  stifle  with  ridicule,  the  movement  now  making 
to  enlarge  the  field  of  woman’s  education,  and  consequently  of  her 
activities,  seem  to  be  actuated  by  a similar  spirit.  Just  here,  I beg 
that  I may  be  clearly  understood.  With  those  who  concede  to 
woman  rights  equal  with  man’s  in  respect  to  higher  education,  but 
differ  with  me  in  respect  to  the  means  of  attaining  it,  I have  no  con- 
troversy. Every  enterprise  which  has  for  its  object  the  elevation 
of  woman  by  widening  the  range  of  her  intellectual  attainments, 
shall  have  my  hearty  sympathy.  But  I have  neither  sympathy 
nor  patience  with  the  opinion  so  often  expressed,  that  the  educa- 
tional wants  of  woman  are  already  met ; that  (taste  and  propriety 
forbid  to  her  the  acquirement  of  profound  learning  or  professional 
skill ; that  the  idea  of  her  invasion  of  the  precincts  of  the  college 
and  the  professional  school,  hitherto  sacred  to  man  alone,  and  her 
consequent  admission  to  professional  practice  in  actual  life,  are  in 
a high  degree  offensive  to  genuine  delicacy.  But  is  such  delicacy 
genuine  ? Is  it  not  rather  contracted,  capricious,  and  false  ? Can 
that  delicacy  be  genuine  which  closes  for  woman  the  avenues  to 
honorable  distinction,  withholds  food  from  the  craving  soul,  and 
condemns  her  in  a thousand  instances  to  a life  of  trifles?  Can 
that  be  true  taste  which,  regardless  of  the  wide  range  of  her  intel- 
lectual and  moral  capacities,  inflexibly  assigns  her  place  as  the 
puppet  of  the  parlor  or  the  drudge  of  the  kitchen  ? 

It  is  true  that  the  enjoyments  and  comforts  of  home,  whether 
lofty  or  lowly,  are,  when  hallowed  by  affection,  the  most  precious 
of  earthly  possessions.  It  is  true  that  woman  is  the  natural 


♦ 

31 

guardian  of  these  treasures,  the  priestess  in  this  sacred  temple, 
the  preserver  and  promoter  of  domestic  joys  and  virtues ; but  is 
this  all  of  human  life  to  her  ? Dignified  and  indispensable  as  are 
the  domestic  duties,  who  does  not  know  that  there  are  mulitudes 
of  women  to  whom  they  do  not  furnish  employment,  and  multi- 
tudes more  whose  intellectual  needs  they  do  not  fully  supply  ? In 
the  wide  variety  of  our  mental  and  moral  wants,  is  written,  without 
distinction  of  sex,  “man  cannot  live  by  bread  alone.’’ 

But  grant,  for  the  moment,  that  home  occupations  and  the 
stinted  measure  of  other  employments  which  public  opinion  now 
yields  to  woman,  are  ample  enough — where  are  the  facilities  for 
an  education  which  would  adequately  prepare  her  for  even  these? 
Only  four  institutions  in  this  broad  land  teach  to  girls  the  theory 
and  practice  of  housekeeping,  and  the  various  handicrafts  con- 
nected therewith,  and  not  one  furnishes  any  systematic  instruction 
in  the  higher  and  holier  duties  appertaining  to  the  mother  and 
the  wife. 

But  let  us  submit  this  question  to  the  test  of  a genuine  philo- 
sophy. Let  us  settle  it,  not  by  the  ever-varying  standard  of  a 
capricious  taste,  not  by  notions  of  propriety,  "which  are  spurious 
and  fickle,  but  by  the  decisions  of  an  inflexible  logic. 

First,  then,  it  is  universally  recognized  as  an  axiom  in  education, 
that  every  human  being  has  a natural  right  to  the  free  exercise 
and  complete  development  of  every  power  which  God  has  implant- 
ed in  his  or  her  mind.  Not  on  the  wide  earth  can  there  be  found 
one  man  or  woman  who  does  not  inherit  this  inestimable  right — 
not  one  who  does  not  hold  it  by  a tenure  as  unquestionable  as  that 
by  which  he  possesses  the  faculties  of  his  own  soul. 

In  this  great  truth  lies  the  very  essence  of  a rational  freedom. 
Take  from  an  intelligent  creature,  of  whatever  sex  or  race,  the  pow- 
er of  free  thought,  free  investigation,  and  free  speech  in  all  the  di- 
rections in  which  intelligence  may  legitimately  act,  and  in  iso  far 
you  reduce  that  creature  to  a condition  of  intellectual  bondage,  for 
which  neither  social  enjoyments  nor  material  pleasures  can  ever 
compensate.  Not  the  least  of  all  the  wrongs  inflicted  by  the 
harem  of  the  East  and  the  plantation  of  the  South,  was  that  each 
condemned  its  victims  to  the  degradation  of  perpetual  ignorance. 


32 

If,  then,  the  mental  powers  with  which  humanity  is  endowed,  in- 
clude, in  the  laws  which  govern  their  activity,  the  right  to  unlim- 
ited culture  and  growth,  it  follows  that  we  must  accord  to  woman 
facilities  for  education  equal  and  identical  with  those  of  man,  un- 
less it  can  he  shown  that  her  faculties  of  mind  differ  from  his  eith- 
er in  their  nature  or  number.  That  the  mental  capacities  of  wo- 
man are  the  same  in  number  with  tlioso  of  man,  it  is  idle  to  deny. 
But  if  there  be  found  one  who  embraces  so  absurd  a theory,  let 
him  name  tlio  particular  element  in  her  mental  organization  which 
is  wanting.  Can  she  not  see,  and  hear,  and  smell,  and  taste  ? Does 
she  not  apprehend  and  analyze,  abstract  and  imagine,  classify, 
generalize,  judge  and  reason?  Does  she  not  experience  all  the 
countless  shades  and  undulations  of  feeling  ? And  are  her  desires 
and  energies  of  will  less  numerous  or  less  powerful  than  yours,  my 
ancient  friend  ? Clearly  no  argument  against  giving  her  the  wi- 
dest range  of  choice  as  to  the  means  of  her  own  culture,  can  rest  for 
a moment  on  so  singular  a basis.  And  the  only  other  ground  on 
which  it  can  find  the  semblance  of  a foothold,  is  the  assumption 
that  the  faculties  and  feelings  of  woman’s  mind  stand  in  such  rela- 
tion to  each  other  in  their  natural  growth  as  to  constitute,  by  the 
predominance  of  some  over  others,  what  are  called  the  character- 
istics of  the  sex.  It  is  asserted,  for  example,  that  woman  is  the 
creature  of  impulse ; that  in  the  affairs  of  life  her  decisions  spring 
from  sympathy  rather  than  from  judgment ; that  her  objects  of 
thought  are  individual  things  rather  than  classes,  and  that  she  is 
incapable  of  the  wide  generalization  which  perceives  a law  in 
every  event,  a principle  in  every  fact. 

But  these  characteristics  belong  to  those  women  only  whose  ed- 
ucation is  defective  and  narrow,  and  who  have  been  confined  all 
their  lives  long,  to  a limited  range  of  observation  and  experience. 
And  they  belong,  to  a large  extent,  also,  to  men  who,  with  a similar 
lack  of  culture,  have  lived  under  similar  conditions.  The  simple 
truth  is  that  a predominance  of  the  emotions  over  judgment  and 
reason,  is,  in  cither  sex,  the  offspring  of  ignorance  or  injudicious 
training,  and  the  more  need  have  we  of  such  a system  of  education 
as  shall,  in  all  cases,  restore  the  lost  balance. 

It  is  pertinent  to  the  subject  to  dwell  briefly  on  the  real  mental 


33 

distinctions  manifested  by  women  as  peculiar  to  the  sex.  The  en- 
quiry is  subtle  and  difficult,  but  not  wholly  beyond  solution.  That 
there  are  certain  qualities  of  mind,  which,  outside  of  the  influence  of 
education,  belong  to  woman  as  woman,  I cannot  for  a moment 
deny.  The  great  problem  is  to  distinguish  what  is  innate  from 
what  is  the  result  of  her  peculiar  position  and  life-long  surround- 
ings. It  appears  to  me  that  the  original  difference  in  the  mental 
characteristics  peculiar  to  woman,  lies  not  so  much  in  any  contrast 
of  her  intellectual  powers  with  those  of  man,  as  the  greater  natural 
strength  of  certain  instinctive  emotions.  For  example,  what  in 
man  is  simple  love  of  offspring,  is  intensified  in  woman  to  that  in- 
expressible yearning  called  the  maternal  instinct.  How  beautiful 
this  provision  which  nature  has  made  for  the  preservation  of  the 
race.  How  few  would  survive  the  innumerable  dangers,  the 
pains,  diseases,  and  restless  wants  of  infancy,  were  it  not  for  the  un- 
tiring watchfulness  of  a mother’s  love.  No  human  being  could 
reach  maturity  but  for  the  sacrifices  which  a mother’s  devotion  in- 
stinctively makes.  “When  a mother  doth  forget  her  child,  men 
lift  their  hands  and  cry  ‘A  prodigy ! ’ ” She  is  the  preserver  of  the 
race. 

Another  radical  distinction  of  the  sex,  is  a quicker  susceptibility 
in  childhood  to  moral  impressions.  Girls  appreciate  earlier  and 
more  readily  than  boys  the  boundaries  of  right  and  wrong  ; as 
though  God  had  declared  in  the  superior  delicacy  of  conscience  he 
gives  to  woman,  that  she  should  bo  the  guardian  of  the  public 
virtue. 

The  only  original  difference  of  intellectual  power  consequent 
upon  sex,  that  I have  been  able  to  perceive  in  years  of  observation, 
is  the  earlier  activity  and  quickness  of  girls  in  the  growth  of  their 
perceptive  faculties.  This  earlier  development  of  the  sex,  how- 
ever, furnishes  no  foundation  for  reasonable  doubt  as  to  her  com- 
parative intellectual  strength. 

Gathering  up  the  shreds  of  our  argument  thus  far,  we  have  found, 
I trust,  that  woman  is  endowed  with  all  the  mental  elements — with 
faculties,  feelings,  desires,  volitions,  equal  in  number  and  identical 
in  kind,  with  those  of  man — but  that  nature  has  superadded  to  these 
the  sexual  distinctions  of  superior  delicacy  of  conscience,  an 
5 


34 

earlier  maturity  of  intellect,  and  greater  intensity  of  parental 
affection. 

Can  there  he  found  in  all  this  any  valid  basis  for  an  opinion  that 
the  education  assigned  to  her  by  public  opinion,  is  adequate  to  her 
full  intellectual  and  moral  developement  ? Does  not  the  keener 
moral  perception,  the  stronger  instinct,  the  earlier  activity  of  in- 
tellect, constitute  a reason  even  for  a more  complete  and  careful 
culture  ? Certainly  the  higher  the  endowment  the  greater  the 
necessity  for  its  discipline,  and  the  more  terrible  the  consequences 
that  flow  from  its  perversion  and  abuse. 

If  to  woman  has  been  entrusted,  by  virtue  of  her  organization, 
the  care  of  infancy,  the  training  of  childhood,  and  in  a certain 
sense  the  guardianship  of  the  public  morals,  what  wonders  for  the 
advancement  of  society  might  she  not  accomplish  if  she  were  fitted 
for  these  duties  by  a wide  and  generous  cultivation  ? 

These  three  qualities,  which  find  naturally  a higher  manifesta- 
tion in  woman,  are  the  only  mental  characteristics  which  divide 
the  sexes.  All  other  differences  in  character,  power,  habit,  man- 
ner, and  language,  which  are  observable  in  real  life,  result,  I verily 
believe,  from  the  wider  opportunities  for  observation  and  intel- 
lectual attainments,  the  graver  responsibilities,  the  weightier  and 
more  numerous  public  enterprises  that  are  accorded  to  man.  Men 
monopolize  almost  all  the  learning  of  the  world.  Men  perform 
those  labors  of  original  research  which  result  in  the  discoveries  of 
science.  Men  are  the  authors  of  the  masterpieces  which  become 
standards  in  thought  and  style.  Men  produce,  mainly,  those  won- 
derful creations  of  fancy  which  find  expression  in  poetry,  painting, 
sculpture,  and  music.  Men  have  perfected  the  inventions  by 
which  steam  and  electricity  have  so  changed  the  conditions  and 
multiplied  the  events  of  modern  life.  Men  engross  the  skill  and 
success  in  trades  and  handicrafts.  Men  occupy  mainly  the  pulpit 
and  the  rostrum.  Men  wear  the  judicial  robes,  fill  the  editorial 
chairs,  and  men  deposit  the  ballot.  But  does  all  this  show  on  the 
part  of  woman  any  inferiority  of  intellectual  endowment?  Can 
natural  capacity  avail  if  opportunity  be  wanting  ? Is  not  learn- 
ing the  fruit  of  steady  and  protracted  application  ? Is  not  artistic 
skill  the  reward  of  persistent  and  long  continued  practice  ? Are 


35 

not  invention  and  discovery  preceded  by  life-long  investigations  ? 

Does  the  editor,  the  orator,  or  the  judge,  spring  into  life  in  full 
panoply  ? And  has  society  ever  given  to  woman  the  advantages 
which  encourage  application,  and  practice,  and  investigation,  of 
which  learning,  and  artistic  skill,  and  original  discovery,  are  the 

results  ? 

On  the  contrary  the  doors  of  colleges,  and  unviersities,  and  pro- 
fessional schools,  have  been  closed  and  double  barred  at  her  ap- 
proach. The  savans  raise  their  hands  with  horror  at  the  idea  of 
giving  to  her  any  general  admission  to  the  higher  walks  of 
philosophy  and  science.  Public  Opinion,  that  terrible  tyrant,  has 
declared  that  her  highest  intellectual  longings  must  be  satisfied 
with  the  fripperies  and  superficial  mummeries  of  the  boarding 
school.  Society  proclaims  that  intellectual  greatness  is  incompati- 
ble with  feminine  beauty  and  grace,  and  that  the  attainment  of 
the  one  is  the  sure  sacrifice  of  the  other ; — as  though  grace  and 
beauty  were  not  naturally  heightened  by  the  accession  of  genuine 
power.  True,  she  has  gained  an  insecure  foothold  in  certain 
departments  of  literature,  and  has  attained,  in  numerous  instances, 
to  eminence — especially  in  fiction  and  poetry — but  she  comes  to 
these  even  without  adequate  preparation,  trammeled  by  the  popu- 
lar demand  that  she  shall  handle  her  topics  with  a gingerly  and 
delicate  touch,  and  not  by  any  means  presume  to  write  like  a man. 

Now,  any  class,  male  or  female,  is  apt  to  accept  quietly  its 
position  in  the  framework  of  society,  whether  rightly  or  wrongly 
assigned  to  it,  and  very  few,  either  of  men  or  women,  have  the 
hardihood  to  pass  the  limit  where  the  general  sentiment  com- 
mands, with  inflexible  sternness,  “ thus  far  shalt  thou  go  and  no 
farther.”  Give  to  any  class  of  men,  for  example,  an  inferior  political 
status — deprive  them  for  generations  of  all  participation  in  the 
affairs  of  government — take  away  all  stimulation  to  wide  and 
comprehensive  thinking,  and  let  the  nation  demand  of  them  the 
labor  of  the  muscle  alone,  and  they  will  answer  the  necessities  of 
their  condition  by  becoming  ignorant,  stolid  and  muscular.  That 
is,  they  respond,  with  few  exceptions,  to  the  general  expectation 
and  desire,  believing  of  themselves  what  the  world  believes  of 
them.  “Possunt  quia  posse  videntur.” 

/ 


36 

Now,  the  world  has  assigned  to  woman  her  place,  which  she 
has  submissively  accepted.  It  has  accorded  to  her  a high  social 
rank,  and  she  has  responded  by  becoming  man’s  social  superior, 
deciding  for  him  all  questions  of  social  propriety.  It  has  demanded 
of  her  a high  aesthetic  culture,  and  she  meets  the  demand  by  a 
keener  discernment  of  whatever  is  tasteful,  and  beautiful,  and  ap- 
propriate. Offensive  epithets  and  rough  language  rarely  pass  her 
lips,  and  in  her  presence  the  unseemly  jest  and  the  rude  oath  are 

nushea. 

But  the  world,  while  it  yields  to  woman  great  social  considera- 
tion, and  a sincere  deference  in  matters  of  taste  and  propriety, 
withholds  from  her  all  incitements  to  great  intellectual  effort  ; 
gives  her  no  voice  in  settling  questions  of  public  utility,  no  share 
in  those  graver  responsibilities  that  strain  every  energy  to  its 
utmost.  It  requires  that  she  should  be  man’s  help-meet  only  in 
the  lower  phases  of  life.  It  demands  her  constant  presence  in  the 
sick  room,  but  shudders  if  she  attempts  to  write  the  prescription 
or  handle  the  scalpel.  It  demands  her  attendance  at  the  chapel, 
but  excludes  her  from  the  pulpit,  and  piously  winces  when  her 
prayers  become  audible. 

To  all  this  woman  has  yielded  assent — has,  in  general,  accepted 
the  sphere  which  society  assigns  her — a sphere  which  in  many  in- 
stances cramps  her  usefulness,  by  forbidding  her  the  labors  for 
which  she  is  best  fitted,  and  by  confining  her  to  employments  for 
which  she  has  no  adaptation,  depriving  society,  in  many  individual 
cases,  of  great  ability,  by  turning  it  into  uncongenial  channels, 
and  compelling  it  to  expend  itself  upon  comparative  trifles. 

Such  are  the  obstacles  which  prejudice  has,  from  time  imme- 
morial, set  up  to  the  possession  by  woman  of  that  complete  liberty 
of  choice  in  culture  and  pursuit  which  is  claimed  and  exercised 
by  man.  The  paths  which  popular  applause  open  to  us,  attract 
multitudes  of,  willing  feet,  but  the  adamantine  walls  of  popular 
prejudice — how  few  have  the  courage  to  scale  ! 

Yet  this  wall  has  been  scaled  by  women  enough  to  prove  that 
judgment,  which  places  her  sex  on  a plane  of  intelligence  lower 
than  man,  to  be  fallacious,  however  sanctioned  by  time. 

Women  have  been  found  in  all  ages,  who,  evenjwithout  special 

37 

preparation,  and  against  the  prejudices  of  their  times,  have  won 
their  way  to  eminence  in  all  those  branches  of  literature,  art  and 
science  that  lead  to  the  advancement  of  civilization.  Madame 
De  Stael  was  hardly  inferior  to  Voltaire  and  Rosseau  as  a vigorous 
writer  and  thinker.  Madame  Roland,  an  ardent  republican  and  a 
woman  of  wonderful  power,  was  the  leader  of  a celebrated  politi- 
cal club  during  the  terrible  times  of  the  French  Revolution.  Joan 
of  Arc,  a peasant  girl,  led  the  army  of  the  French  to  victory,  and 
saved  the  kingdom  from  destruction.  Aspasia,  of  the  classic 
period,  was  the  most  eloquent  of  orators.  Anna  Dickinson  now 
enjoys  a similar  distinction.  Miss  Mitchell  is  reckoned  among  the 
most  profound  of  astronomers.  Few  have  made  greater  attain- 
ments than  Mrs.  Somerville  in  physical  sciences.  Among  painters, 
Rosa  Bonheur  is  distinguished — among  sculptors,  Harriet  Hosmer 
— among  poets,  Mrs.  Hemans,  Mrs.  Sigourney  and  Mrs.  Browning. 
Charlotte  Bronte  and  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe  stand  high  as  writers 
of  fiction,  and  the  latter  has  done  more  probably  than  any  other 
writer  towards  effecting  the  extinction  of  American  slavery.  As 
monarchs,  Elizabeth  of  England,  and  Isabella  of  Arragon,  are 
prominent  on  the  pages  of  history.  As  a missionary,  Mrs.  Judson 
is  reverenced  throughout  Christendom.  As  a preacher,  Antoinette 
Brown  holds  an  honored  place.  Mary  Lyon  was  at  the  head  of 
her  profession  as  a teacher,  while  for  her  services  to  our  soldiers 
as  a surgeon,  Mary  Walker  has  received  the  thanks  of  Congress. 

But  why  should  I attempt  to  enumerate  the  numerous  instan- 
ces in  which  women,  without  help  of  the  institutions  of  learning 
open  only  to  men,  and  by  dint  of  their  own  energy  alone,  have 
risen  above  the  level  of  mediocrity  to  help  the  onward  progress 
of  the  world.  Mrs.  Hale,  in  a dictionary  of  distinguished  women — 
has  gathered  2,500  names  honored  by  history  in  science,  art,  litera- 
ture, philosophy,  politics,  government,  philanthropy,  and  religion. 
And  if  woman  has  done  so  much  in  a public  capacity,  outside  the 
sphere  allotted  to  her  by  common  consent,  and  unaided  by  schools 
of  preparation  which  men  enjoy,  how  much  more  of  public  good 
might  she  not  accomplish  if  these  agencies  were  in  her  favor? 
This  long  roll  of  distinguished  names  proclaims  what  she  can  do, 
and  all  we  ask  is  that  she  should  have  unlimited  access  to  every 


88 

existing  facility  for  education,  so  that  what  she  can  do  she  may  be 
enabled  to  do  well.  Overthrow  every  obstacle,  level  every  barrier, 
whether  of  prejudice  or  of  custom,  to  the  dust ; welcome  her  to 
every  institution  of  learning,  to  all  employments  and  professions, 
high  or  low,  which  she  may  choose  to  enter.  Make  her  man’s 
equal  in  all  privileges  and  pursuits,  and  let  her  choice  and  capaci- 
ty decide  the  rest.  Be  assured  that  learning,  culture,  high  intelli- 
gence and  taste,  left  to  their  own  impulses,  undisturbed  by  the 
fears  and  crotchets  of  men,  will  not  go  far  astray,  Nor  will  a wider 
education  prove,  as  some  apprehend,  a hindrance,  but  rather  a help, 
to  the  prosperity  and  happiness  of  the  homes  over  which  most 
women  will  be  called  to  preside.  For  knowledge  lends  a salutary 
influence  to  every  condition  of  life,  and  especially  will  a more 
discriminating  judgment  and  wider  views  enable  the  mother  to 
act  well  her  part  in  managing  the  household,  and  in  the  delicate 
task  of  moulding  the  characters  of  her  children  into  permanent 
forms  of  goodness  and  truth. 

Nor  need  we  on  the  other  hand  give  heed  to  the  suggestion 
that  an  enlarged  intelligence  will  divert  the  attention  of  women 
from  the  interests  and  employments  of  domestic  life.  Beyond 
question  these  are  the  employments  to  which  her  sympathies  nat- 
urally and  usually  point.  Among  her  increased  facilities  for 
scientific  instruction,  should  stand  prominent  the  study  of  domestic 
economy.  Such  special  preparation,  added  to  general  culture,  will 
dignify  these  duties,  render  their  performance  easier  and  more  sys- 
tematic, and  leave  time  for  healthful  recreation  and  rest.  Those 
who  leave  these  pursuits,  which,  guided  by  cultivated  capacity, 
beatify  and  beautify  the  home,  will  be  exceptional  cases,  compelled 
by  exceptional  causes,  or  prompted  by  exceptional  abilities.  To 
the  wider,  grander  work,  that  such  may  do  for  the  world,  let  us 
extend  the  means  for  thorough  preparation. 

Nor  have  we  ground  to  fear  that  an  extended  programme  of 
studies,  unlimited  opportunities  for  self  discipline,  and  the  result- 
ing reception  of  woman  into  the  vocations,  professions,  and  public 
enterprises  hitherto  monopolized  by  men,  will  at  all  detract  from 
the  delicacy  of  feeling  and  modesty  of  manner  which  are  among 
her  chief  attractions.  For  she  is,  as  we  have  said  before,  by  reason 

L 


39 

of  her  quicker  perceptions  of  right  and  propriety,  the  guardian  of 
public  morality  and  virtue.  Men  living  in  associations  isolated 
from  women,  soon  grow  rough  and  coarse,  become  careless  of  the 
proprieties  of  life,  and  rapidly  degenerate  in  manners,  and  dress, 
and  language.  Restore  her  salutary  presence,  and  the  roughness 
and  coarseness  disappear,  the  manners  are  softened,  the  dress  im- 
proved, and  language  restricted  to  the  forms  of  courtesy.  The 
schools  whose -pupils  are  under  the  most  wholesome  restraint,  are 
those  in  which  both  sexes  study  and  recite  together.  The  excesses 
and  disorders  of  the  ancient  college  can  find  no  cure  so  radical 
and  certain  as  the  admission  of  young  women  to  its  dusty  halls. 

Let  American  women  join  generally  the  gatherings  in  the 
caucus  and  at  the  polls,  and  such  gatherings  would  be  as  quiet  and 
free  from  confusion  as  the  meetings  she  frequents  in  the  church 
and  the  lecture  room. 

As  woman,  by  virtue  of  her  superior  morality,  is  largely  absent 
from  all  conspiracies  for  the  commission  of  crime,  as  she  far  excels 
man  in  personal  purity,  as  four-fifths  of  murderers  and  felons,  and 
nine-tenths  of  all  drunkards  are  of  the  masculine  gender,  let  her, 
in  God’s  name,  be  present  to  dignify  every  associated  effort  for  the 
promotion  of  public  virtue,  for  the  extension  and  security  of 
freedom,  for  the  progress  of  learning,  and  for  the  happiness  and 
welfare  of  the  world. 

I have  only  to  add,  that  in  twenty-five  years  of  personal  obser- 
vation in  the  charge  of  promiscuous  schools,  I have  found  the 
female  student  fully  equal  to  the  male  in  capacity  for  thorough- 
ness in  any  of  the  branches  of  study,  whether  common  or  higher. 
In  mathematics,  in  language,  in  philosophy  and  science,  she 
holds  her  way,  “gradibus  equis.”  Unusual  talents  display  them- 
selves no  oftener  among  boys  than  girls,  and  dullness,  while  it 
furnishes  its  examples  from  both,  is  in  fact  peculiar  to  neither. 

W e offer,  then,  to  the  young  women  who,  from  time  to  time, 
shall  resort  to  this  College,  a scope  for  scientific  progress  and  re- 
search as  unlimited  and  free  as  that  which  we  offer  to  the  other  sex : 

1st.  Because  all  the  faculties  of  the  human  mind  have, 
without  respect  to  gender,  a natural,  unquestionable  right  to  dis- 
cipline and  develop  ement. 


40 

2d.  Because  the  duties  of  motherhood,  to  which  God  has  ap- 
pointed her,  require,  for  their  complete  performance,  a wide  and 
cultivated  intelligence. 

3d.  Because  general  intellectual  and  moral  culture  will  sanctify, 
elevate  and  purify  the  influences  of  the  home,  and  render  it  a 
genuine  school  for  the  training  of  the  future  citizen. 

4th.  Because  we  would  enable  her  to  make  provision  for  her 
own  self-support,  by  a special  preparation,  to  engage  in  many 
suitable  employments  on  a footing  equal  with  man,  both  as  to  the 
skill  and  the  remuneration  of  the  worker. 

5th.  Because  we  would  supply,  as  far  as  possible,  one  great 
necessity  to  woman,  namely,  a means  for  the  culture,  and  a field 
for  the  action  of  peculiar  talents,  thus  giving  relief  to  the  aimless- 
ness of  many  lives,  and  adding  many  noble  workers  to  the  world. 

6th.  Because  we  would  call  all  learning  and  culture  to  the  aid 
of  woman  in  accomplishing  her  natural  mission,  the  advancement 
of  general  morality  and  virtue. 

Gentlemen  of  the  Faculty  : 

I cannot  close  without  congratulating  myself  and  the  Trustees 
on  the  high  character  of  the  men  who  are  connected  with  me  in 
this  philanthropic  enterprise.  For  accomplishing  the  noble  pur- 
poses which  these  benevolent  reforms  embody,  have  you  and  I 
received  our  commissions.  The  work  is  great — the  reforms  con- 
templated are  measurably  new,  and  their  wisdom  is  to  be  submit- 
ted to  the  test  of  experiment.  Upon  our  energy — our  harmony 
of  counsel  and  action — our  untiring  patience  and  persistent  effort, 
will  depend  its  success.  Each  of  us  has  his  special  ability — his 
special  experience,  which  prepares  him  for  his  special  work. 
While  we  give  our  best  endeavors  to  the  specialties  assigned  us, 
let  us  watch  with  Argus  eyes  the  interests  of  the  whole  institu- 
tion. 

God  give  us  faithfulness  and  devotion God  give  us  mutual 
confidence — mutual  esteem,  and  mutual  helpfulness.  Thus  shall 
we  be  able  to  gather  and  concentrate  all  the  elements  of  strength 
we  possess — and  thus,  with  the  Great  Father’s  blessing,  will  the 
rolling  years  bring  their  full  harvest  of  fruits. 


41 

REPLY  OF  DR.  TOWNSHEND. 

Mr.  President  : — For  my  colleagues  and  myself  I desire  to 
say  that  we  feel  deeply  the  responsibilities  of  the  position  to 
which  we  have  been  called.  I believe  we  are  in  more  danger  of 
being  crushed  under  a sense  of  their  weight,  than  of  failing  to 
recognize  their  importance.  To  you,  sir,  I feel  warranted  in  say- 
ing that  the  Faculty  who  have  been  chosen  to  share  with  you  in 
this  enterprise,  from  what  they  have  seen  and  what  they  have 
learned  of  your  experience  and  success  as  an  educator,  have  the 
fullest  confidence  in  your  ability  to  direct  the  studies  of  all  the 
youth  that  may  assemble  here,  and  to  control  all  the  affairs  of  this 
institution,  so  as  to  insure  its  success.  In  all  your  work  here  we 
pledge  you  our  sympathy  ; we  purpose  in  all  things  to  aid  you 
with  warm  hearts  and  willing  hands. 

To  the  Trustees  and  other  friends  of  the  institution,  permit  me 
to  say  that  we  are  fully  in  accord  with  the  advanced  position  of 
this  school  in  regard  to  the  course  of  study.  We  believe  that  the 
physical  and  mathematical  sciences,  when  acquired,  are  of  more 
practical  value  to  all  the  industrial  classes  than  the  classics,  and 
in  their  acquisition  are  equally,  or  even  more  valuable  as  a 
means  of  discipline  and  development.  We  are  also  in  fullest 
sympathy  with  the  provision  made  here  for  the  education  of 
woman.  If  man  and  woman  were  made  to  share  equally  the  joys 
and  sorrows,  the  cares  and  trials  of  life  ; if  they  must  share  equally 
in  the  physical,  mental  and  moral  developement  of  succeeding 
generations  ; if  woman  is  to  be  the  consoler  and  comforter  of  man 
in  his  sorest  trials  and  afflictions,  and  if  it  is  her  duty  to  be  his 
prompter  and  inspirer  in  all  that  is  pure  and  elevating,  it  is  hard 
to  see  why  she  does  not  need  and  deserve  an  equal  education. 

Permit  me  to  say,  also,  that  we  are  most  heartily  in  sympathy 
with  the  broad  and  unsectarian  character  of  this  institution. 
While  we  regard  a Christian  gentleman  as  the  highest  style  of  man, 
and  will  labor  assiduously  to  aid  our  pupils  in  attaining  that 
standard,  we  cannot  but  express  our  gratification  that  the  feet  of 
our  pupils  are  not  to  be  tortured  or  dwarfed  by  the  Chinese  shoe 
of  sectarian  limitations. 

6 


POEM, 

j3  Y j^ROP.  ji.  yj.  j^ARKER,  OF  JoWA  pOLLEGE, 

THE  IDEAL  FARMER  AND  HIS  WIFE. 

Tlie  American  Farmer — son  of  the  Sun  ! 
Bronzed  with  a glow  from  its  glory  won ; 

As  free  as  the  air  it  is  heaven  to  inhale, 

And  strong  as  the  steeds  of  the  prairie  gale ; 

Lord  of  his  castle  and  broad  domain, 

The  herd  his  vassals,  the  flock  his  train, 

And  rich  in  the  coin  his  granaries  hoard, 

He  sits  at  the  head  of  his  bountiful  board, 

And  laughs  at  the  crowded  world  afar, 

Buzzing  with  ceaseless  commercial  war. 

Behold  him  at  morn ! — his  polished  plow 
Traces  dark  lines  with  its  silver  prow, 

Writing  the  verse  in  alluvial  mould 
The  summer  shall  print  in  letters  of  gold, 

And  set  to  the  trill  of  the  oriole’s  tune. 

Behold  him' at  rest  in  the  languid  noon, 

Stretched  on  the  grass  and  cooled  by  the  breeze, 
His  kingly  pavilion  the  glistening  trees. 

Behold  him  at  eve ; — the  evening  his  own, 
Home-joys  are  his  that  to  few  are  known ; 

The  russet  is  brought  from  his  last  year’s  store  ; 
His  fruity-faced  children  play  on  the  floor, 

And  his  wife,  her  cheek  like  orchard  bloom, 

Is  the  crown,  the  queen,  of  the  cheerful  room. 

That  mine  of  riches — that  farmer’s  wife ! 

How  busy  and  happy  and  proud  her  life ! 

From  her  pans  she  “pans  out”  her  rolls  of  gold, 


4:3 

And  her  eggs  are  all  nest-eggs  of  wealth  untold ; 
It  tries  not  her  patience  to  try  out  her  lard, 

And  her  lot,  like  her  bread,  is  never  hard  ; 

She  knits  her  stockings,  but  never  her  brows, — 
Gives  the  fowls  a dressing,  butmot  her  spouse. 
Oh,  busy  and  happy  and  proud  the  life 
The  farmer  lives,  and  the  farmer’s  wife. 

Is  the  picture  too  fair,  too  rosy  its  glow  ? 
Tell  us,  thou  husbandman,  John  or  Joe ! 

What  are  thy  musings  the  livelong  day, 

Or  home  returned  in  the  twilight  gray  ? 

What  honest  pride,  what  bliss  of  health, — 

Of  peace,  content,  what  conscious  wealth? 
What  converse  with  Nature?  what  hidden  lore 
Wiser  than  books,  is  it  thine  to  explore  ? 

What  science  untaught,  in  schools  unheard, 

Of  soil  and  plant,  or  of  beast  and  bird  ? 

John — who  is  one  of  the  rarer  kind, 

Sunny  in  heart  and  searching  of  mind, 

Replies  in  few  words ; “Ah,  well  do  I know 
Life’s  flowers  and  briers  commingled  grow, 

And  man  may  pluck,  if  he  so  desires, 

The  flowers  alone,  or  only  the  briers. 

One  thorn  there  is — I feel  it  in  truth — 

The  lack  of  a studious  habit  in  youth.” 

Thus  worthy  John.  Is  he  right — is  it  so  ? 
Come,  give  us  thy  mind,  thou  frequent  Joe. 

“Wal,  now,  I guess,”  Joe  answering  says, 
“A  ruther  hard  time  on’t  the  farmers  hez; 
There’s  nuthin  to  think  on  but  work  and  eat, 
And  arter  his  chores  a man  is  dead  beat ; 

An’  there’s  oilers  bad  luck  a feller  frets, 

High  price  an’  low  price,  notes  an’  debts, 

An’  breachy  critters,  an’  losin’  a hoss, 

An’  somehow  the  gain ’s  no  more  ’an  the  loss. 


44 

I was  down  with  the  rheumatiz  May  and  J une, 

An’  the  seed  wa’nt  sown  the  right  o’  the  moon. 

The  sheep’s  got  foot-rot  an’  market, is  down, 

An’  wheat  I kept,  hopin’  prices  come  ’roun’ ; 

An’  wife,  she  is  kind  o’  droopin’ jest  now, 

An’  the  chil’en  took  sick,  I can’t  tell  how  ; 

I’m  sartain  we  gin  ’em  plenty  of  pills, 

But  a bilious  fever  brings  doctor’s  bills. 

Wal,  honest  folks — they  must  oilers  work  ; 

It’s  only  your  village  sharpers  can  shirk.” 

Thus  J oe  discourses : alas,  how  the  real 
Kicks  over. the  pail  of  the  creamy  ideal. 

If  Joe  were  honest,  there  still  would  be 
Some  milk  remaining  for  poetry’s  tea. 

But  he  keeps,  ’ tis  said,  the  strippings  apart 
When  he  vends  his  milk  by  the  pint  or  quart ; 
There’s  a tallow-faced  hue  in  his  butter  and  lard, 

And  his  four-foot  wood  is  cut — by  the  yard. 

Is  it  then  but  a dream — this  son  of  the  soil, 

Noble  and  wise  in  his  primitive  toil? 

Hail,  these  fair  halls ! ye  teachers,  hail ! 

Hence  shall  go  forth  no  sitters  pale, 

Brooding  fine  words,  and  those  of  an  age 
That  has  reached  the  hydrosulphuric  stage, — 

A diction  not  freshened  by  daily  resort 
Direct  to  the  sea-side  of  Nature  and  Art. 

None  shall  go  hence,  who,  when  they  are  “through,” 
At  a loss  what  the  Lord  has  formed  them  to  do, 

Save  longer  to  paddle  in  learning’s  pool, 

Must  enter  perforce  a professional  school. 

But  hither  shall  come  and  hence  shall  go 
Youth  who  their  earnest  work  shall  know — 

The  farmer’s  son  and  the  artisan’s  boy, 

Whose  father’s  calling  is  honor  and  joy. 

In  mind  and  muscle  strong  and  skilled, 

By  them  our  ideal  shall  grandly  be  filled — 


45 

The  workman’s  name  be  a name  of  pride, 

By  knowledge  and  character  glorified. 

True,  from  this  vine  in  its  verdant  June, 

Some  “common  branches”  we  may  not  prune. 

Our  mother-tongue  will  be  cherished  here, 

And  grandmother  (gram-mar)  held  very  dear, 

So  far  as  to  teach  that  a man  is  a clown 

Who  hitches  one  horse  to  a plural  noun ; 

Is  a Teuton  profane  with  too  many  a “got  ” ; 

Avows  he’s  a toper  in  saying  “I  sot,” 

Is  “a  settin”  what  ? traps  ? when  he  sits, 

And  that  verbal  murder,  “I  done  it,”  commits. 

For  the  rest  we  may  hope  that  here  the  young 

Will  begin,  not  “commence,”  the  Saxon  tongue ; 

And  that  Mother  Nature  will  find  a place 

As  broad  and  fair  as  her  beaming  face, — 

Will  be  seated  near  the  sovereign  throne 

Which  He — the  Great  Teacher— may  claim  alone. 

The  ticking  pendulum  of  rhyme 

Measures  too  soon  my  share  of  time. 

The  prosy  people — let  them  flow 

Like  hour-glass  sand — as  dry  and  slow ; 

My  “winding  up”  shall  not  be  found 

A clock  that  runs  the  more  ’tis  wound. 

Would  there  were  time  the  life  to  trace 

Of  one  complete,  who  leaves  this  place 

To  sow  his  knowledge  with  his  seed, 

And  reap  far  more  than  mortal  meed. 

What  if  his  corn  be  not  increased  ? 

He  is  a mind — a man — at  least, — 

Not  a machine  like  that  he  rides, 

Not  like  the  plodding  horse  he  guides  ; 

He  reads  in  plant  and  soil  and  sun 

Wonders  undreamed  by  Solomon. 

46 

Or  might  we  track  his  after  course, 
Who  ponders  here  the  laws  of  Force. 

He  sees  in  every  breath  of  steam 
Shot  from  yon  mill,  a cloudy  stream, 

A mammoth  power  dissolved  in  air. 

He  builds  a township  laundry  there, 

And  frees  the  world — its  hapless  wife — 
From  bondage  to  the  plague  of  life. 

But  who  the  happy  change  may  guess 
When  women  takes  her  proud  B.  S.*  ? 
Smile  not ! She  is  in  nature’s  plan 
Chemist  and  doctor  to  every  man. 

Shall  she,  through  scientific  lack — 

Shall  she — the  duck — be  but  a quack  ? 
Doubt  not ! O’er  all  her  daily  toil 
Science  shall  pour  its  wine  and  oil — 

The  skill  that  smooths  her  weary  way, 
The  light  of  thought’s  perpetual  play ; 
This  and  religion  are  the  wine 
Shall  make  her  lowly  life  divine. 

Far  East,  a convent,  fair  and  new, 
Looks  off  on  Lake  Cayuga’s  blue  ; — 

Ho  cross  surmounts  its  ample  walls, 

No  pictured  saint  adorns  its  halls  ; — 

A marble  goddess  guards  the  place — 
Minerva — wisdom,  strength  and  grace. 
Wouldst  know  the  name  it  wears  ? It  tells 
Of  one,  the  generous  founder — Wells. 

On  that  same  lake  there  gazes  down, 

High  o’er  a hill-embosomed  town, 

A monastery — the  latest  home 
Of  all  learning,  with  naught  of  Rome 
Save  the  angelic  mellow  chimes 
That  link  the  new  with  elder  times. 

And  stone  by  stone  the  buildings  rise, 

*B.  S.  Bachelor  of  Science. 


47 

Bearing  aloft  to  greet  the  skies 
A name  the  world  shall  treasure  well — 
Large-souled,  munificent  Cornell. 

Well  clone,  O East,  but  not  the  best ! 
Here  in  the  fresh  and  fearless  West, 

We  smile  to  think  of  monks  and  nuns. 
We  dare  to  trust  our  noble  sons ; 

We  dare  to  trust  creation’s  Lord  ; — 

His  chorals  give  no  ill  accord ; 

The  manly  and  the  maiden  mind 
Together  grow  more  bright,  refined. 

That  place  is  holy  ground  and  sweet, 
Where  earth  and  heaven  together  meet. 


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- ' I . 


